Illness Unrestricted
by MelloShello
Summary: There is nothing more painful than this. Am I sick on the inside, or the outside? I don't want you hurt, either way. NamiXas brother/sister. R&R is appreciated o o
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **Well well. This is the first chapter. Happy happy for me. The lame excuse that you have been writing late at night / early in the morning comes into action.

**Rating: **Rated M for sex, drugs, and obviously grapey brother sister jank. You're welcome.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Kingdom Hearts, my friends. T_T Good night, now.

I wake up. I brush my teeth. I eat too much. I do mindless, objective-less things. I go to school. My sister goes to school. This is me. This is simplicity.

Sora is basically, and in all seriousness, my bitch. I do not respect him. But that's ok, right? That does not make me a bad person. It's just that I often wish I could put needles in his face. I wish I could make him stop laughing forever. When he laughs, it creeps me out. It makes me feel like he's coming on to me.

I do not dislike Sora, I simply feel nothing for him but the feeling that you have for ugly animals that are dying.

When I go to school, Sora is almost always the very first person I see. I wish I could change this. Sora is irritating, and is the most irritating in the morning. The sun is the brightest in the morning, and his scars and cigarette burns show the clearest. Axel and I once put firecrackers in his box of cigarettes.

Sora believes he is my friend. He is not my friend. Sora is one of those mistakes that you make when you feel slightly generous while handing out empathy, and in the end I get the same resentful dissatisfaction out of our relationship as I do when I catch myself staring at Axel's ass.

As much as I regret having Sora as a friend, he is one of the most important people in my life. I thrive off of him, he gives me good feelings. About myself.

"Even _I _think you should be less of a dick to Sora," says Riku one day after school. Riku and I share no connections except for that he sometimes deals me ecstasy and I like ecstasy, therefore we talk behind the building occasionally.

I muse about Sora like this because my sister, Namine, came home today crying.

"I called him a spineless pussy," she sobs, "and he just walked away without saying a word, and that hurt worse than if he had punched me in the face."

"Did you have a reason for calling him a spineless pussy?" I ask, relatively amused.

"Kairi likes him. He doesn't have the guts to tell her that he's not interested, and she keeps getting all these false hopes. It's pathetic for both of them, but _he's _the man!"

I sigh.

"Sora's not a man. He's a floating, nebular entity."

Namine gets this disgusted look on her face.

"I hate him. I just hate him. I hate all men." She then looks at me, as if I'm some kind of savior. "But I love you," she says warmly, "I missed you, Roxas." And she hugs me as we both sit on the couch.

This is where my problem begins.

I can walk around my house, and eat, and talk to Axel, and do ecstasy as much as I want but I cannot run away from my family, which means I cannot run away from my sister.

In the beginning, I dislike my sister. She is a shiny person - her hair is blonde, her blue eyes reflect mine. She, in many ways, reflects me, therefore, my good deed reflects hers and her sin reflects mine. My sister and I are both inward people, we have friends, but our friends don't have us. In the beginning, I do not like that my sister does not tell me who she dates, and I do not like that she does not ask me for help with homework.

Does that mean I approach her? We do not seek others. We beckon them. This means that we are not connected as siblings.

When my sister hugs me while we both sit on the couch, this is the end of the beginning.

I sit up, quickly.

"That was strange." I say, blushing, and I walk away. I walk upstairs. Our parents won't be home for two weeks. I walk into my bedroom, thankful for their absence. I breathe slowly through my nose, and then slip into bed. And this is where my problem begins.

"Happy January," calls Axel, opening my bedroom door, without knocking, again. "The sun is high and so am I."

"Get the fuck out of my house. I have nothing for you to smoke." I mutter, my face stuck to my pillow ungracefully.

"I know that," he laughs, "I came here to ogle Namine."

I jerk out of my pillow, into a kneeling position on my bed, staring seriously at Axel.

"Just kidding…" He says, eyes widening.

"This is stupid." I mutter, as Axel slips a narcotic into Sora's refrigerated Pepsi. Axel likes to steal people's house keys.

"You are a peachy person," he replies as he closes the refrigerator. This is our Saturday morning. "Take these situations more seriously. If we can manage to kill Sora, our lives will be easier."

"No, our lives will be amusing for the length of time that it takes for him to die. Then our lives will be boring again."

"I suppose you're right."

Then Sora makes his way into his kitchen, rubbing his eyes. A very, very, very sad glimmer of happiness appears in his face when he sees two of his friends (which have committed several felonies in this position) in front of his refrigerator, assumedly raiding it because they respect Sora enough to do something like that and then joke about it later.

"We bought you a soda." Axel says gravely, and hands the bottle to our good friend.

"Thanks!" Sora chimes, and drinks it heartily.

"Should we bury him?" I suggest.

"No, he'd wake up with dirt in his brains."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"Yeah kind of, he could sue us."

"Whatever."

We decide to leave him naked on Kairi's couch, a couple blocks away. She doesn't wake up until like, two in the afternoon anyways.

"Well, I'm heading home." Says Axel, as we stand in the intersection of roads that lead to my house, Sora's house, Kairi's apartment, and Axel's apartment. Nearby is a drug store that has been destroyed and modified by Riku's organization.

"Good bye," I say, waving after him, "I feel like a good citizen."

At home, Namine has showered, and sits in front of the sliding glass doors at the end of the kitchen, gazing out into our mothers zen garden. She drinks a glass of iced tea. She's wearing one of _my _red t-shirts, which is too large for her, and some black leggings.

I lean against the wall behind her, watching her. An aching knot forms in my stomach.

"I can hear you breathing back there." She says quietly. I sigh.

"You sure do know how to weird me out." I mumble, "I'm sure you heard me come in."

She twists around to look at me with serious eyes.

"Why are you wearing my shirt?" I ask coldly, the question sounding more like a statement.

"I just found it."

"But why are you _wearing _it?"

"I just _found_ it." She repeats, frowning. "Do you want me to take it off?"

This makes the knot in my stomach tighter, and blood rushes to my face. Is she asking me this to torture me? What a foolish person.

"If you want it back, I'll give it back." She says in exasperation.

"No. Whatever." I mutter, and head upstairs, "I'm taking a shower."

When you're in hot water and no one is watching and you begin to touch yourself, it's hard to stop. Good things come out of masturbation, but I felt much, much, less clean as I dried my hair, put on some dark, comfortable clothes and headed back downstairs.

"Is there anything in particular you want for dinner?" My sister asks as she sits on the couch, and I am on the floor leaning against it. The television is muted.

"You're going to make something?" I ask, raising my eyebrows.

"No. I want to order something."

"Mom and dad had better bring home something delicious from Alaska."

"They eat bear in Alaska."

"Y'know who else eats bear?" I ask.

"Who?"

"Sora."

And we both burst into idiotic, immature laughing fits.

"I'm kind of glad mom and dad will be gone for a while." Namine says after our laughter dies down a bit.

"And why is that?"

"It's just nice. It's quiet."

In our family, the conflicts are the other way around – Namine and I rarely fight, but our parents do. Every day a stupid argument arises and every night it dissipates, they behave like kindergarteners.

Something strange happens. Namine reaches down while I am watching the silent screen, and brushes her hand once down the top of my head down to my neck, stroking my hair. I think – maybe – this is a sisterly touch, but it's still so wrong, after what I did in the shower. I stand up, jerkily.

"Uh- sorry." I mutter, and leave the room. I leave the house.

Over the hills and through the woods to Axel's house I go.

"I feel sick." I groan, the moment I open the door to his bedroom. He is alone, smoking a cigarette on his bed.

"What's wrong?" he asks, sleepily.

"I can't talk about it."

He smiles. Goddamnit Axel, you bastard.

"Come here, my sweet prince, may the fruits of gaydom bring you back to me." He says in a singsong voice, getting off the bed and pulling me into a creepy hug.

"Do not fuck with me. I'm serious." I croak, and I feel more ill than I had earlier felt, and run to the nearby bathroom to vomit.

"Jesus God, I didn't think you meant it." He says, as he leans on the doorway. "Did someone slip you something?"

"I said not to joke about this-" I manage to say between retches, my hand shaking against the toilet bowl.

"I'm not joking… what the hell happened?"

"Just shut up and stop looking at me." I moan, and vomit again.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **-_-;; I can't believe I'm doing something like this on Christmas Eve. D: Oh, and I'm very, very sorry if this offends people. I do not support incest. Trust me.

"Is this supposed to be easy reading?" I ask the next morning, on Axels couch. I have pulled a little brown book with golden accents out of a seat cushion. This is our Sunday.

"I suppose so. It really wasn't something I had intended to buy." Axel sits on the floor against a desk across the room.

"All the characters are really sick…" I flip uncomfortably through the pages.

"They all have serious Oedipus complexes. Their problems mainly originate from their parents and stuff. Their sexual frustrations, too."

"It's weird." I toss the book onto a recliner nearby. "I'm so glad none of us are like that." Axel's face breaks into a creepy grin.

"Oh, dear Roxie, _everyone _in this world has an Oedipus complex of some form or degree. We can't help it."

"Freud was just a sick dude that brought up sick ideas that nobody wanted to talk about and called it psychology." I mutter with revulsion.

"Call it whatever you want." He sighs, standing up. "You can keep that book… do some thinking about your parents."

"Sick bastard…"

"Speaking of which," he says, pulling on a black coat, "I'm gonna go visit my father."

"You're going to church?" I ask, for some reason this is the first thing that pops into my head.

"Uh, no. My real father. Goodbye."

Axel shuts the door quickly behind him. Am I just supposed to sit here? I guess that's ok. He's left me here by myself before. Its morning… the lot that Axel's apartment is on isn't very attractive, though. The clouds make everything look dark. I guess a storm is coming?

I lie on my back on the couch. I'm not hungry. I feel too nauseous. I have a pretty big problem on my hands.

I sit up a little to glance at the book. If I read any more of that, I might vomit again.

Is there some kind of medicine I can take that would make all this go away? I'm the very worst kind of older brother. Nothing bad has happened yet. I want this to end before something bad happens.

Someone knocks on the door twice, lightly, like a baby woodpecker.

"Hello? I'm coming in."

My sister steps into the room, wearing a large, comfortable looking hoodie and khaki skinny-jeans.

How the _hell _am I supposed to solve inner problems if she starts following me around?!

"I figured you might be here." She sighs, and gets a strange, scrutinizing look on her face. "What's wrong with you?"

"I felt sick. I didn't want you to have to deal with me all night. Axel's been taking care of me." Wow, that sounds close to some kind of truth.

"Are you feeling better?" She asks, sitting on the couch next to me.

"Yeah, kind of." If you sit too close to me, however, I might throw up again.

"… Are you mad at me?" She says, hesitantly.

God… why am I being tortured like this? I couldn't be mad at Namine… even if I wanted to. I'm so pathetic. But what the hell am I supposed to say to her?

"Why on earth would you think that?" I ask sadly, feeling myself lean onto the couch to look at her. She's so damn pretty. It isn't fair.

I think I might be looking at her a little too wistfully – she fidgets uneasily and tries to avoid my eyes and puts her hands in the pocket of her hoodie.

"I dunno… you seemed a little unhappy about me wearing your clothing."

"Namine, I don't care." I say seriously.

She finally gives in. She glances at the book on the recliner nearby, but thankfully doesn't pick it up. She turns to me and says:

"So does Axel have any weed around here, or what?"

When Axel returns home a few hours later, Namine is laying on the couch in a pot coma. I'm on the floor, leaning against the couch with a cigarette, flipping channels to the large TV sitting on Axel's desk.

"What an interesting scene this is." He muses as he opens the door. "We should draw on her face."

"I feel stupid. She's only sixteen. She shouldn't be getting into that kind of stuff."

"Ah, whatever. It never really matters in the end."

"I don't want half of her brains to be scooped out by the time she graduates." I mumble dejectedly, continuing to flip channels.

"If it's her reputation you're worried about, I would forget about it." He sighs, tossing a convenience store plastic bag onto the already too-cluttered desk. "She's set. You guys are rich."

"That has nothing to do with it." I mutter in irritation.

"You're graduating this year, right?" he asks.

"Yeah. And I'm not gonna drop out."

"Education is overrated," says the wise man, and pulls a cigarette out of his pocket.

"How is your father?"

"He's fine. Well I mean, dead. I put a six-pack in front of his tombstone at the cemetery."

"I bet he'd like that." From what I can remember of Axel's living father, beer is a good sentiment. The death of his father may have been the best thing to happen in Axel's life.

At eight in the evening, Namine is still out.

"Hey, Roxas," Axel nudges me in the ribs, grinning, "Should we bury her?"

"Shut up. Let me borrow your car. I'll give it back to you tomorrow."

Namine doesn't wake up when I lay her on the couch back at our house. I sigh. She'll definitely be sick when she snaps out of it. I head into the kitchen and get a wet washcloth and place it gently on her forehead.

Then I realize: Holy shit. Did I just let my little sister overdose? Panic floods into my veins like melting ice. I run into the kitchen again and get a glass of water, and splash it into Namine's face. She wakes up, gasping, tears glistening in her eyes.

"I was asleep, bastard!"

"Oh."

Namine heads upstairs to take a shower, and I pull on some pajamas in my bedroom, then sit in front of the window In the back of our kitchen, looking out at the garden tinted with the deep blues and grays, making the tiny, dead, crispy flowers look like little ghosts.

I hear my sister walk gently towards me. She kneels behind me and softly puts her arms around my neck, laying her head on my shoulder next to mine. Breath from her nose meets my collarbone. I can feel steam emanating from her skin onto mine. Her hair falls onto my back, damp and warm. This too – I believe – is innocent.

This hurts. My stomach hurts. My heart is beating fast. I can feel her hand drift slowly from around my neck to my naval. Damn it…

"Namine…" I breathe hoarsely, hugging my knees to my chest so she can't see my impending erection, "You're driving me crazy."

"Sorry…" she says quickly, drawing her hands away, "I'm not trying to annoy you."

"You're not." I mutter. I'm so fucked up. I can't even stand up. She's going to have to leave first. I feel so _sore_.

"Good night, Roxas." She says, standing up.

"I love you." I say quietly.

"I love you too," she says sweetly, and walks away.

So, what the hell was that? I've never told my sister that I loved her unless my parents instructed me to. Of course I love her as family, but now, that is becoming an increasingly more difficult to focus on. Family. Family is disgusting.

Why was the word _family _created? Why couldn't we just forget about family? Animals can. Humans however, have to turn everything into a dogma. You can't love your sister. _Why can't you love your sister?_

Is it because you feel disgusted by your family? Or perhaps… do you feel disgusted by your family because you are _told _to be disgusted by your family?

Start coming up with reasons not to love Namine.

She's a little girl! Well, no she's not. She's not too young to love, but still…

There are tons of boys at school that like her. So? Boys that age are stupid. They don't know how to make someone like her happy.

Our mother and father? They're never here. They're always gone for work, or vacations. Even when they're both here, together, they wouldn't notice anything. They're a tangent force, they aren't there.

She's your sister. _Family. Sister. _Does it matter? Of course it does. Do not lose sight of this fact. Cruel facts can slap you in the face later in the great scheme of things.

But I love her!

Do I _really _love her?

I'm not sure.

Maybe I'm just attracted to her.

Can I piece together lust and love?

Whatever. Thinking about this is going to make me vomit again. Perhaps Freud doesn't deserve to be called sick quite as much. I sure do, though.

My bedroom is too cold. I decide to take a shower. Perhaps, (for the both of us) being externally clean is a way to escape from the internal filth. Sort of.

After I shower, I pull on my pajamas and walk into the hallway, and I hear Namine's little voice call for me from within her room.

What the hell am I supposed to say? No. I'm not going into your room because I don't want to seduce you and I just took a 'shower' and I feel sick and if I look at you I could vomit and-

The door opens, and Namine is just wearing a shirt and some panties. A jolt of pain erupts in my midsection and I focus on the paint chipping off of the doorframe.

"Check this out." She whispers, smiling, and takes my hand. She leads me to the window across from us in her bedroom. Outside, a remarkable amount of snow has piled up on the trees, on roofs, in birdbaths, in sheets on the road, covering everything. It's still drifting down excessively, in large chunks.

Namine squeezes my hand, and I can feel the blood in my stomach rush to my face.

"January is more winter than December is." She looks up at me. There is no moon; her face is simply pale and grayed by the reflective white that is engrossing the landscape outside. "Do you like winter, Roxas?"

I sigh.

"A little." I mumble.

Something strange happens, again. Namine looks at me in a watery, almost boredom, then leans forward, lifting off from her heels a little. Dear God, this is it. This is the end of me. Her breath is on my face, gently, and she kisses my cheek. Maybe, just maybe – this too – is innocent. Sisterly.

I turn away from her dejectedly. I can't look at this. This is _wrong_. The pain in my stomach drifts slowly downward. Down. Rock bottom. It's where I stand. Thanks a lot, you son of a bitch, Freud. Your outlandish and sickening concepts may have gotten the best of my sister as well.

She squeezes my hand a little tighter.

"Namine, stop." I groan, in honest pain.

"Why? You're so serious." She says irritably, dropping my hand.

"Yeah? Well I'm going to bed. Get some sleep. I need to think about something else for a while."

"But _why_? What the hell is wrong with you?"

I turn around, and look at her face, miserably. I must look as bad as I feel, because she sees my face and suddenly she's full of wakening concern.

She reaches for my hand again.

"It's this, isn't it?" She frowns, and looks at me, "You take _this _seriously."

I shudder. My bones ache. Everything aches.

"Yeah." I whisper.

Namine drops my hand. She looks almost sick, herself.

"I think I'm going to go to bed." She mumbles, "I… I can't…"

"It's ok." I assure her, "Just forget about it. This isn't real. Go to bed."

She leans forward and kisses me on the lips. I can delude myself as much as I want, but this is an unavoidable thing I'm trying to fight against. I cup her face with my hands, and almost let myself proceed, but I quickly jerk her face away before I lose it.

"Goddamnit Namine, _stop_." I nearly moan.

"Shut up, you bastard. You started this." She spits out, acidly, and climbs into bed. And she leaves me no choice but to step out and get in my own.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **Merry Christmas. I got a book about philosophy.

My alarm goes off at six on Monday morning. I don't want to go to school. I should go, though. I miss too much school anyway due to acid reflux. I wake up, painfully, bones aching, and head to the bathroom to vomit. I don't knock first before stumbling over the toilet. Luckily, Namine isn't in the bathroom. She's downstairs, in front of the window in the back of the kitchen. She's still in her dark blue, too-large pajamas.

I've brought my toothbrush down from the bathroom and brush my teeth over the kitchen sink. I don't know why, but when I hastily do things like this due to my illnesses, I always do it in the kitchen. I only get up so early because my brain has to adjust to the potent drug that slows the cogs of morning.

My sister doesn't look at me. She doesn't say anything. Is she upset? Well, obviously. But is she _angry_? I spit disgustedly into the sink, and I see blood.

"Aren't you going to get ready?" I ask, finally, avoiding any kind of tension that may arise.

"For what?" She has no emotion in her voice.

"School?"

She turns to look at me with an annoyed sharpness.

"You idiot, we don't have school. We don't go back until next week." She slumps her head further into her knees, which are pulled up to her chin. "Merry late Christmas, retard."

Well, ok. She's mad at me. I'm not going to argue with her. I should feel guilty about doing this to her, but I feel too sick. Did I seriously just get myself up at six for school?

I saunter my way weakly to the couch in the living room a few paces away and fall face first on top of it. If I could sleep, that would be great.

So, my stomach is bleeding. Ulcers.

"Roxas," calls my sister softly from the back of the kitchen. I don't answer. I feel like shit.

She slowly pads into the living room. Is she sorry now? I don't need your pity. Don't insult me again either. If I vomit on the floor, I don't want you to see it. She stands right in front of the couch, looking at me.

"Is it getting worse?"

"Is _what _getting worse?" I groan.

"… Your stomach,"

"Yeah,"

Moment silent.

"Why?" she asks hoarsely.

"I don't know," I lie, and glance at her, and suddenly it hurts worse than its ever hurt, _ever_. "Quick, get the bucket from under the sink in the cabinet."

She jumps quickly, and nervously rushes for a large, black pail from the kitchen and runs back to me, and more blood and guts than I think I've ingested in a _week _just comes gushing out of me. It hurts… Namine has seen this before, but it's getting worse. I don't stop gagging up on air for a while, the whole wretched process lasts for about eight minutes. She quickly grabs the bucket away from me before I can drop it because I'm shuddering so hard, and brushes my hair back away from my face to look at my forehead.

"God, Roxas-" she says desperately.

"Don't say anything," I moan, anxiously, "Don't move. Don't make a sound."

So, she sits there with her hands on my face in fear, while I choke back desperately on anything else that might come up, writhing and shivering in all of the pain and weakness coursing through my body. I'm not going to cry. I haven't cried in front of my sister in years, and I'm not going to just because I threw up. As hard as I try, though, I can't stop the pained little groans that escape from behind my clenched teeth.

"What the _hell _is wrong with you?" She whispers, finally, after about a minute or two.

"I don't know."

"It's me." She declares.

"Shut up, Namine."

"No, It's me!" she almost yells, "I know it is!"

"Well, it's not your fault."

"You're sick." She sighs. "You're _really _sick."

"I don't care," I say weakly, and make an effort to stand up without her support. I quickly dispose of the contents of the bucket, and rinse it out as well as the sink, and she watches me timidly from a few feet behind.

"I think you should see a doctor," she says quietly.

"I don't _care _what you think." I honestly don't. Do I wish mom and dad were here? Of course not. Damn, it would be so much worse if they were here.

She continues to watch me sadly as I brush my teeth again, twice. I spit out more blood, just pure, metallic blood.

Namine takes a few steps forward and wraps her arms around my midsection, ever so gently. She doesn't say anything. I'm not going to _die_, Namine. I actually feel better now. Your arms are warm.

She breathes deeply into the fabric of my pajamas, her face buried in my back. I sigh and place my hands on hers around my midsection, below my ribs. My hands are a lot larger than hers, I've noticed. One of my hands could hold three of hers.

Is she really my sister? This unconcealed fraternization with my family is the strangest feeling.

She tightens her hold on me, almost squeezing.

"Don't hurt me," I warn, quietly.

"You smell like blood…" she murmurs into my back, "But you're so pale. You can't have much blood in you."

"Yep,"

I feel better though. Was my blood poisoned? I know how I feel about my sister. Perhaps my body recognized this and changed my blood, so I didn't share the same blood as her.

Her hands are still connected, but her hold on me drifts inches down, so her hands settle right _above _my pelvis. The racking, burning feeling you get in this area is always enjoyable when you're _not _thinking about your sister. I place my hands on hers again.

"Do you realize that this is weird?" I ask, sadly.

"Heh… do _you_ realize that if you were a girl, your sexual organs would be _in _your body, right below the skin my hands are on?" She asks in sarcasm, tickling me a little with her fingers.

"I'm serious," I say unevenly, unable to hold back tickle-induced laughter.

She drops her hands, suddenly, and takes a step back.

"I know it's weird." She states sternly, as if she had just realized what was going on. "I'm sorry."

I turn around and am finally able to get a look at her face. She's completely red…

"I, uh…" She mutters awkwardly, avoiding eye-contact, "I'm going to Kairi's. You should be at Axels house."

Well… at least she finally gets it. Namine is a female. This whole thing is tearing the _shit _out of me, but it should hurt her worse. Namine, in particular, is more emotionally inclined than others. Her gait is even uneasy as she grabs her black pea-coat and heads out the door.

***

"Whoa, Roxas," Axel says in an almost worried tone as I step into his apartment, "You're lookin' really thin."

"I am aware of this," I say in an otherworldly voice, mock-fortune teller, "I have the all-seeing eye. I can perceive. I have perceiving abilities."

"Is this a red sock?" he asks, holding up a _red sock_.

"That is a red sock. I have the power of acuity"

Axel's shower is usually really weird, not gross, but weird. He keeps strange things in there.

Today I find a bottle of Jasmine-scented lubricant, deliberately stopping up the drain, the cap to which Axel must have lost ages ago.

"Please, sir, tell me this is used for orifices I am comfortable discussing." I mutter in honest _fear _as I gaze at the thing, and Axel plucks hair off of his chest meticulously with tweezers.

"Just observe it as another product of my eccentricity."

"Did you have _sex _in this shower last night?" I ask, feeling _really _uncomfortable.

"Well, that depends."

"_What?_"

"They say - in the end - that in sex, the spiritual and psychological entities of a human connect in a more strong synchronization than in any other event. However, the wisest of men know that your body and soul never appropriately commune, under any circumstances. Therefore, sex is just a useless endeavor to connect a body and mind, an abstract concept. It's not even real. It's a theory."

"Sex isn't real?"

"No. Sex isn't real."

He has pulled this bullshit on me since we met, and so, Axel's sex life forever shall remain a mystery to me.

"Let's order some takeout!" He exclaims.

x

"Roxas, are you unhappy with the current state of your life?" Axel asks, opening the little white Chinese-style box filled with General Tso's.

I think about this for a moment.

"I don't know."

"Goddamnit, Roxas, you need to start working for answers. Do some math; you're too right-brained."

"I don't care."

"You're pissing me off!"

"These stupid, conceptual ideas you keep bringing up are in no way mathematical."

"I hate you." He pouts.

"Ok, whatever. Are _you _unhappy with _your _life?"

He thinks for a moment, too.

"I wish I could stop bringing all these college students home with me." He announces, finally, his mouth full of chicken.

"You're not in college…"

"I _linger_, Roxas. Eat some food."

"I don't like Chinese."

"What?"

"I don't like bamboo shoots."

"_How _can Namine stand being near you?"

Ouch.

Really, he's right. I've got a lot of problems… why is Namine dealing with all this?

I'm sad.

Axel looks at me like he's actually sorry, now.

"I was… kidding."

"Yeah, whatever," I mumble, poking my chopsticks at some broccoli.

Namine is home when I leave from Axel's. Sitting in front of the window. If this seems strange and repetitive, it's not. The both of us continuously find solace sitting in front of that thing.

"Hey," she says calmly, without looking at me.

"Hey," I reply, taking my jacket off and tossing it into a dining chair. Something in my body makes me move forward, some inner, driving need that draws me up behind Namine and I catch myself quickly as I kneel down, before I can accidentally embrace her from behind.

Why is my breathing so _jagged_? Suddenly my hand is placed unquestionably on her shoulder, turning her towards me, to face me.

Look at me, why are we so similar?

Her eyes are so blue, like mine. Like me? She's blonde. She's rather thin, and frail, like me, unfortunately. Does that make me weak?

I'm not weak. I was raised this way. Cut yourself off. Was I raised to focus on Namine?

We are connected as people. Humans can connect, they can connect with their family. _Family. That fucking word again._

"Kiss me." She whispers onto my face, her breath on my skin.

Moment silent.

She places a hand on my cheek, and drags it down softly, then puts her hands around my neck. I take a deep, long breath. I count to myself. I count to _thirteen_.

"Can I, really?" I ask, hoarsely, and without an answer, and as painful as it was, and as much as it hurt, I cupped her face in my hands and I did it.

She gasps a little, but delves deeper after a moment, and I can seriously feel the electricity and heat radiating frenetically through our lips and our cheeks and our faces-

I quickly tear my face away from hers, my hands still strongly grasping her skin, her burning cheeks. My breathing is harsh. She looks as shocked with herself as I feel.

"Jesus Christ," I whisper, feeling a hard rock land in my stomach. My insides curl.

She shudders a little. Her eyes are wide.

You did this to me last night.

No, this was more real. This was… sexual.

I lean forward and do it again. Why can't I stop myself? My lips are rough against hers, but hers are incompliant. I feel my hands run through her hair above her neck. She whimpers a little.

Stop.

I freeze. I drop my hands; they land on the floor on either side of her.

"Oh my god," I manage to choke out throatily, and my forehead lands on her shoulder. I can hold back the tears, but I can't stop my shoulders from shaking. Namine lays an apprehensive hand on my back.

"Roxas… it's okay…" She says, stroking me gently, but she sounds very small and very nervous.

I can't move again. My arousal is too conspicuous. None of this is going to go away.

How am I supposed to fight this? I can't even control myself.

"Namine, we can't do any more of this." I groan, shakily.

She doesn't respond.

"You understand that, right? We should stop. We _have _to stop."

"Mom and Dad would be very disappointed in us," she says quietly.

"Fuck, Namine, Don't _talk _about our _parents_!" I nearly shout, disgusted.

"Sorry," she whispers.

I sigh. I let go of her, and stand up. I'm not embarrassed if she notices. If she had external organs, she'd have the same issue.

"I'm going to bed."

She looks up at me, sadly, from the floor. She looks pathetically expectant.

"… You're not coming into my bedroom."

"I understand."

I place a fist over my mouth in thought.

"You _can't _go in there."

She nods, tears beginning to drip down her face.

"Take a bath, forget everything."

"I will," She snivels.

"Don't cry."

"I can't," She begins to sob, "I'm sorry."

"_I'm _sorry." I mutter in a crushed voice, and start upstairs. When I'm in bed, I hear more quiet crying noises in the hallway, and then I hear the bathtub run.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **Writing like this is like peeling partially dry paint off of metal or chewing the dirt out of your fingernails. In the end, you don't care what the message is. You just care about the cleansing feeling. That is what makes this – in most ways – _not _an artistic literature. It makes it some kind of therapeutic tool. So if you decide not to read this, or get offended or whatever you want to call it, that's ok.

…

I'm really just doing this for myself. :D

x

I have entered the realm of sleep, of peace, and of serenity. This realm does not block the insecurity of this world - the instability of the mind, but it traps it. The uneasy feelings of the waking world become a dim unit that floats outside of what appears to be the big picture – the enlightening, mindfucking picture that might just be some kind of answer for me: The world, or the seen and felt and perceived world is all only visible from the eye that we can comprehend.

What I view is a world of pain, of my illness, of all the stupid crap that's going on, and now, in this enlightenment, (or temporary enlightenment, if such a thing exists) I can see what I desire. It may be sinful by social standards, but in the end, what could it matter?

This is the realm of sleep, but not REM. When you wake up, your perception becomes clearer.

I wake up to the sound of thunderous water. Namine is taking another bath. The illness creeps into every crevice of your body until you can deny it no more, (or at least this is my theory) and until then you can do nothing but try to wash a bit of it away.

I wonder how our heating and water bill is doing, in this cold month of January.

I sit up in bed. What do I do? I'm not awake enough to feel whether I'm sick or not. I _do _feel unclean, physically. This is Tuesday.

Somehow, following the guidelines of a late morning and tracing the contours of cranial awakening, I have led myself – probably but some impulse – to the bathroom door.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Knock first. My knuckles hit the wood three times.

At first, moment silent.

"I'm in here," Namine calls from inside, quietly.

What am I supposed to say? Why the hell did I even knock?

"… I know,"

Moment silent. A minute passes. She probably thinks I've left. Or not. She's not moving. The water sounds still.

"… The door's unlocked," she says, ever so quietly from behind the door.

Ok. My heart is beating too fast. I take a deep breath, and reach carefully for the handle. I turn, and slowly open the door.

I don't look at her. I concentrate on the sink. I'm not going to look at her. Not unless she asks me to.

She doesn't speak. I mean, what could she possibly say? I place my fist to my mouth.

"Good… good morning," I mutter.

I hear water splatter. She's not getting out; she's simply sloshing an arm or a leg from out of the surface, to grab a bar of soap or to shift positions or something…

"I got a lot of sleep last night," I begin, nervously, "I dunno. Probably too much. Sleeping after being sick is weird, too. Not exactly scary, but…" my vision drifts to the mirror over the sink and I get a momentary glimpse of pale, naked simplicity. "It's…" I try to recover, "It's just…"

"Roxas,"

"Yes." I say a little too quickly, unable to avert my eyes from what's reflected in the mirror.

"Shut up." She says bluntly, "Turn around."

And so I do, and seriously look at her, but carefully. I'm not going to do some kind of perverted staring thing, if I possibly can avoid it. Just observe. This is natural. This is a simple, human body.

Oh, no it's NOT! Am I fucking crazy?! This is an attractive, _naked woman_. It's not _simple_, not to me. Even if it theoretically is just hunks of flesh and alluring colors and amazing convictions, it's still a completely, arousing, _naked _person.

Whatever kind of bizarre or intimidating or absurd body functions that are occurring within, and even _outside _of me - I don't care. Whatever. Just focus on keeping your hands at your sides and not looking too strained.

"I don't know what to say." I ultimately admit.

"Please say something good," She says, nervously, moving into a sinuous and _aesthetically stimulating _sitting position.

"You look beautiful." I say, without feeling the creepiness of the remark until moments later, when she looks away from me, her eyebrows furrowed together in embarrassment. "What I mean is, healthy." She then turns to frown at me. "Well, what the heck am I supposed to say?! I'm just speaking the truth."

"I figured you were creative enough." She states, frankly.

"How am I supposed to be perfectly reasonable about responses and words and compliments when I'm looking at you, like _this_?" I ask in a frustrated voice, frustrated in every way.

She then stands up. Her slender, pink body rises slowly, and somewhat gracefully. She steps out of the tub, her eyes never off of mine. It's indescribably difficult to focus on her solemn face, and not anything else in front of me… red and dripping.

"I think you realize at this point that we can't run away." She states firmly.

"Yeah, I do." I mutter, still struggling with my eyes.

"Look at whatever you want, Roxas." She says in an impatient tone. "We should give up."

"I don't know what you mean," I mutter absent-mindedly, allowing myself to take advantage of this whole situation, leaving everything to my eyes with my hands firmly at my sides.

"You know exactly what I mean." She spits, irritated. I soak up the words, 'give up.'

Wait. Oh, God.

"No, Namine," I plead, quickly grasping onto her shoulders, "We'll lose our minds. We can't. We're not going to."

"Do we have any other logical choice?" She asks gravely.

"What exactly _is _your choice?"

"Idiot, I want to end it all before we can take it too seriously! Just get it over with, y'know? Then we'll be done. And we won't have to worry."

"That's retarded." I mumble, feeling my face turn even redder.

Something strange happens, again. Namine takes her hand and strokes my right cheek, then, slowly, firmly presses her body onto mine. Immediately my breathing hastens.

"Relax," she breathes into my chest.

"Fuck you, Namine." I groan, as she presses herself harder into me, "This is… disgusting."

She pulls hard on the fabric on the back of my shirt.

"It's too freaking late, Roxas." She sighs miserably.

"We're going _too far_." I moan, feeling myself inadvertently press my midsection against her in physical need.

Moment silent, just electricity. And heat. So much of it is wasted in this house.

"You're right." She states suddenly, jumping away from me, "Too fast. We can't." She takes a step towards the door, and audibly swallows. "Not ever."

What the hell? This is all too _sudden _for me, Namine. I support myself a little on the sink-counter, shuddering, achingly wishing away my erection. My breathing kind of returns to normal.

"Not _today_." I finally groan.

She looks at me with a very, very sad expression on her face.

"What are you going to do now?" she asks.

"It's too cold downstairs. It's a lot colder today than yesterday."

"Stay up here," she implores, quietly.

"… Okay."

Her eyes linger on mine for another moment, and I can see my own hopeless pain and dissatisfaction reflected in deep, rich blue. She then turns, and opens the door, and walks into my bedroom. Wait, wait. What are you doing in there?

I stride after her, and I see her in front of the full-length mirror across from my bed, against the closet. She stands completely still, and thoughtfully eyes her naked body, slowly beginning to frown. She then turns to look at me, her eyebrows slightly furrowed together. I can feel my face turn numb. This room is even warmer than the bathroom. I guess the heating system is better in here.

I close the door behind me. What the hell am I doing? What did I _just _say to her? We're not doing anything. I walk to the lamp next to my bed and switch it on, and I find that my eyes never leave her and her body. I then shut the blinds, so the only light in this room is artificial, and I continue to gaze solemnly at Namine the prospect of so much beauty that could enter my life - if I would let it tonight - but then also pain.

Namine leaves the room for a moment but comes back; adjusting the elastic of a pair of panties she had left in the bathroom, now snugly hugging her soft, pale hips. Without even glancing at me, she heads towards the dresser next to the window, takes out a large black hoodie. I sit on the bed, to watch what I could honestly describe as an incredibly sexy spectacle. It's strange, how something like that works. This girl - this beautiful girl in my bedroom, silently putting on my clothing… it's something that I've had access to in the past, but decided against it. Just… why did it have to be Namine? _Why? _Why did God do this to us, so abruptly? Something about this whole thing is very wrong – not that we'll be able to end it, though.

She walks towards me, and I keep my mouth shut. My hands are balled up against the bed on either side of me. She looks at me dimly, and words come out of her mouth that I can't hear. All I can really hear is my own tense breathing.

"What did you say?" I ask in an uneven voice.

"I said, lie down. On the bed."

I don't ask, I just obey, I suppose. I lie down lengthwise on the bed and curse inwardly that I still have an erection. Namine moves onto the bed with her knees, and then straddles me. It's absolutely impossible to breathe normally, in this position. The phrase that keeps rolling over in my head, practically crying is: _Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god._

"Roxas," she says quietly, but I don't answer. My stomach isn't tight, it's just melted. The tight areas of my body are elsewhere. "Roxas," she says again at my glazed-over expression.

"Yes,"

"I'm going to kiss you."

"… Alright,"

"I'm going to kiss you, and I want you to close your eyes and let your mind do whatever. I don't care what you think about. You can even think about another girl, if that's what happens."

"I would never do that."

"I want you to tell me, when I finish, what happened in your mind. Whatever it may be. And don't lie to me."

"… Ok."

"And don't be embarrassed."

"I'll try."

She puts her hand on my cheek for a moment, and at first all I can think of was the immense love I had for her. This underlying, deep endearment below all of the sick feelings and pain.

Then she leans forward, and kisses me at first very simply, very _sisterly_. The whole _family _thing suddenly comes into my head. My eyes are closed, and the first thing I can think of when she makes contact is my parents. My house. My childhood.

The kiss deepens. My lips don't move at all, but hers paint a strange, uncomfortable and awkward picture for me. She fumbles with her mouth and accidently licks my teeth. I'm thinking, and seeing my sister. Our adolescence. Early-teen years. The day Namine came home, with a fever that made her vomit too, for once, instead of only me; she turned so red. Like blood… That was the day that she started menstruating. Suddenly all I can think of is blood.

Once upon a time – during the most frustrating days of my illnesses when I actually had hope of recovery – I stumbled upon that ancient and dangerous practice of bleeding out an illness. I went into the kitchen and took a cooking-knife, and led the cut from the bend in my elbow to the middle of my fore-arm. It bled profusely, all over my clothes and the floor and sunk into the creases in the hardwood.

I probably would have passed out if Namine hadn't walked home late from middle school just then while our parents were out. She looked at this scene in the kitchen once and immediately was in tears, and efficiently cleaned everything up with a wet towel.

And once, later, when Namine had entered high school and started dating a few boys, I was asked to gather up all of the sheets in the house for my mother to wash outside with one of those old-fashioned metal things that look like cheese graters, because apparently the weather was good for that kind of thing. I started with Namine's room, which she was still asleep in. I was frustrated with the fact that I was being asked to do chores while she was still sleeping at some late hour in the morning, so I shoved her on the shoulder to wake her up. She didn't move, but made this kind of weary, groaning noise.

_"I'm gonna pull you out of this bed if you don't wake up," _I remember saying.

She didn't answer, so I made an attempt to shake her awake again, and then irritably tore away all the sheets and the comforter.

At this point in my life, (I must have been like, fifteen or sixteen) I think seeing my sister in only a t-shirt and underwear may have been perturbing, but that wasn't what made me moan in uneasiness when I lifted up all that fabric.

It was like she was sleeping on an ordinary red mattress sheet, with only a few white stains. Except that Namine's mattress sheet _was _white, and she was lying uncomfortably and practically unconsciously in this huge excess of blood.

It was weird, because I knew pretty much what all that meant. Being aware of sexual organs in family is weird. I shifted her over, and I saw underwear that was supposed to be some kind of light blue stained a striking red.

_"Namine, seriously, you're bleeding everywhere."_ I groaned hoarsely, desperately shaking her.

She never really woke up, unless you count the tiny little pathetic noises she occasionally made, and so I carefully lifted her up, bridal style, and anxiously called for my mother who was doing something in the kitchen.

My mother quickly took her from me, and led her limp body into the bathroom and ran some warm water, where apparently she was revived.

My sister was taken care of and cleaned and was then drinking iced-tea in the backyard while my mother did the laundry, but I still stood in the hallway between her bedroom and the bathroom, shaking in fear. I looked down at my arms and hands, which were stained with a considerable amount of blood. I could smell it; that stinging, metal scent. _How disgusting, _I thought, and quickly washed it off in the bedroom.

I tried not to think of all the blood all over that sheet. My parents ended up having to buy another mattress in the end, which was unnerving. I remember vomiting a lot in that time period.

… And so, my sister is kissing me even deeper, and I can feel her crotch grind against my stomach, and all I can think of is _her_. _Bleeding. Childhood. Family. _Suddenly a sea of blood. The smell of sweat, and of metal. Strangely, all of the memories of our school life, and our conflicts and opposing recognition and the informalities of domesticity wash over me like a _sea of blood. _And it stains like blood, too.

Namine tangles her hands in my hair, and pushes her midsection further against mine and licks my neck and slides a hand down my stomach to my waistline. I can hear a bizarre, throaty groan come out of me. How incredibly strange and confusing – these memories and yet all of this stimulation.

"Please say my name," she says, pulling up my shirt and beginning to kiss my stomach.

"Namine," I _kind _of say, it sounds more like a strangled whimper. I can feel her breath on my stomach and suddenly my hips move upward a little, in a weird, animalistic rocking motion. Oh my god, this is frightening. What's going on? So much inner conflict. The pleads in my mind, saying, _Don't do this. Don't do this to your sister. Don't do this to yourself. _The harsh demands that say, _I want this. This can be mine. Touch me. God, let her touch me._

Her lips move to mine again, and I can feel her slowing everything down. That's ok. Like we agreed, not tonight. This was a freaky experience.

I am disturbed. I open my eyes. Her lips are redder, her face is redder, and her eyes are dimmer. But… it scares me. And then, the angry, painful message that I'm getting from other parts of my lower body, _"Why the hell did you stop?!" _ My midsection says, _"This is repulsive. It makes you sick. You can't do this." _My groin says, _"Shut up, just shut up. It doesn't matter. Kiss her again. If you have to, restrain her. This situation belongs to you."_

And somehow, the thought runs through my head: _The blood is on your hands. _This could be my entire fault. I don't want that, but more importantly, I'm getting these realizations in waves that _my sister, _my tiny _younger sister_, is on top of me, I have an immense erection, and my shirt is up and now we have to deal with that. I feel gross. I feel guilty and I feel really, really unclean.

"How do you feel?" she asks in a low, husky voice.

"Dirty,"

That may have not been the best way to describe it. She frowns, and pulls down my shirt a little.

"Tell me, what went through your head?" she whispers.

What, exactly. I lift up a hand to confirm that the blood is gone. The blood is not on my hands. This bed is clean. We're still – externally – cleansed.

"I don't want to say." I mutter uneasily.

"Really sexual?" she asks a little nervously.

Sexual? Well, yeah. What is a good answer for what just happened?

"Physically and mentally, the whole thing was a big, Freudian mess." That about sums it up.

"Was it bad?"

No.

"Of course it was."

Is this my mindset? Think the dirtiest things, and then blurt out whatever seems right? She frowns, probably in frustration.

"Well, I tried." She mumbles.

"No," I retort, sitting up a little and grasping her shoulders, "It wasn't bad, it was-"

And then I need to vomit, again.

Namine kneels behind me, as I lean and shake over the toilet. She puts a consoling hand on my back, when it seems like I'm finished. I brush my teeth weakly over the sink, and she sits on the countertop, just watching me, sadly. I lean over against the faux-marble. Trying to focus on the rejuvenation of my spirit, which is often drained relentlessly in both sexual situations and while vomiting. She pulls me softly into her arms and I just stand there. My face against her chest. It's just not sexual anymore, at least not now.

Ha. I just lied.

"Do you still want this?" she says in almost a whisper, into my hair. I sigh.

"I'm not going to do anything you aren't comfortable with."

"You know what I'm comfortable with."

I pull her closer to me.

"You might be comfortable with too much."

"What are we gonna do when-"

"Don't say it."

"When our-"

"Namine, _shut up_." I groan, "They won't be back for like, a week and a half. We don't have to think about it."

She places a hand on my face and forces me to look in a pair of eyes that may have been more serious and grave than I've ever seen them before. They're dangerous.

"Roxas, listen to me. We are not going to forget or deny the fact that we are completely and utterly _brother and sister_," she says, and I shudder a little. "You're not stupid, I know that. So don't act like it and pretend Mom and Dad aren't around. 'Cause what we're doing here is real, more real than anything we've ever done with other people."

"I don't know if I can…" I whisper hopelessly.

"Pull yourself together, Roxas," she urges, and a few tears drip down from her face, "You can't forget. Because I never will, and it's scary." She pulls me close to her again. "It's really fucking scary."

I can't forget, huh? It seems like that's what every part of my body _wants _me to do. Forget everything, drop it all, become something that you never were.

_Can _I keep myself together?

Why did our parents leave us here _alone?_

It's so unfair. I love you, Namine, and I dreadfully want you, but you make me ill.

"I want to test the situation," she says finally, "I want to make sure that we can control ourselves."

"And how is that?"

"We're going to sleep in the same bed, but we're not going to…" her voice trails off.

"That doesn't sound so-" But then I think. And yes, that sounds _really _difficult.

"What time is it?" she asks.

There's a little analog clock in one of the cabinets in here, and it says '4:00pm.'

"Later then," she says quietly, and leans towards me, "Kiss me."

And so I do. I place my hands on her hips and I do what can be considered a make-out. Tongues and everything. Thank God I brushed my teeth. I should probably stop, just in case somehow this illness is contagious.

Wow, that's stupid. Of course it _is_.

How else would we be in this situation?


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: **I'm really, really mad right now. So if this chapter is kind of violent or angsty or whatever, sorry. Like I said, this is therapeutic.

x

"Well, I'm a homosexual." Says Axel, as I pull his car into a space on this creepy, grayish lot that he lives on. He stands outside of the car, his hands pressed to the driver's side-window, his nose almost touching.

"That's hilarious." I say with no humor whatsoever.

"Yep, it was a good lie." He opens the car door for me. "Maybe some day, my little friend. Just for you."

Ugh. Maybe I should just leave, before I have to hear him talk anymore.

"Let's go set stuff on fire," he suggests, and pushes me back inside, thrusting me into the passengers' seat.

Our intersecting neighborhoods all kind of sit in the middle of this big, desolate, foresty-type area. We technically live on the outskirts of the city, but mostly you could just call it the ancient suburbs of probably over a hundred years ago. If you travel a few miles west of the city, you start to get really deep in these trees and moors, and it's pretty easy to isolate yourself.

"It's a sexual-predators dream-site." Says Riku gloomily, who sits in the backseat of the car. Axel is an abrasive man who likes to collect people to do stupid stuff with.

Up in this almost mountainous area, we find this great, open spot with lots of trees where we park the car and set up all the stolen food goods Riku's brought. It's mostly crap, like beer and packaged donuts and beef jerky.

Axel tosses a couple pillows out on the grass, and starts making this weird concoction in a used Tabasco-sauce bottle.

"The trick is to add a little orange juice," he says, as I stare at the clear-blue sky. I can't believe it's blue; it hasn't been clear like this for weeks!

"'Cause it's acidic?" I ask. I have very little knowledge when it comes to chemistry, or whatever kind of weird pyroscience this guy is into.

"Well, I guess you're right. Highly acidic. But I like the way it explodes and attracts bears."

"My parents are probably eating bears right now." I mumble absent-mindedly, still gazing at the sky.

"What?" Riku asks.

"Never mind."

I close my eyes and imagine the whole forest on fire. Just flames. It's wonderful, the concept of fire. The discord it creates, and the nothingness it leaves behind. The way it smells, and the achievement it can bring. And then, death. When I die, I want to be cremated. Then, throw my ashes in a forest and burn that down, too.

Riku and Axel entertain themselves sufficiently by blowing up random stuff they scavenged from Sora's house, but I really can't get myself interested. I walk away. I consider sitting in the car and listening to music, but I decide to just kind of leave the area. Those guys don't even notice me.

I pull cigarette out of my pocket and walk around the forest. As soon as the smoke draws into my lungs however, I cough a whole lot, and then vomit behind a tree. More blood. I should eat something. Then I remember orange juice, and 'acid' and I vomit some more.

I toss the pack of cigarettes into a pile of leaves and vow to never smoke again, ever. Then I collapse behind a different tree and try to breathe again, cleanly and painlessly.

I really, really hope I don't die.

My cell-phone is in my coat pocket, and it says '5:15pm.' I left the house just after seeing '4:00pm,' with Namine. She left the house to get something to eat elsewhere.

I don't like to use a cell-phone, but I keep it anyway. I don't like communication that isn't genuine. My parents made me get it.

I look up from my cell-phone and see something really frightening - this giant owl perched on a branch, staring at me.

Mother Nature has a way of really freaking other animals out. Stuff like lizards that can make their skin look huge to strike fear in prey, and the way beetles lift their hard, mechanical wings to allow the smaller, weaker ones underneath to fly. I've even discovered, that if you stand really far away from a mirror at night and just lift your arms up and down like you're signaling a helicopter, you'll freak the shit out of yourself. It's just _disturbing_.

But hey, I'm sick. I wouldn't even doubt the idea that I'm visioning the owl. It's an omen, maybe, if I'm insane. God says: you're doing a lot of really stupid and messed up stuff recently, Roxas. Here's an owl to scare the pants off of you. Get the message.

It's really bizarre and colorful, with giant yellow eyes. It opens its sharp, pointed beak and makes an irritating screechy noise.

"Shut up." I mutter dully, and get up and walk away.

Axel and Riku are still having fun with explosives, when I walk back to the moor.

"You're missing all the fun, Roxie!" cries Axel, pouring gasoline onto a pile of old clothing.

"What's up?" asks Riku.

"I found an owl."

"Let's blow it up!" says Axel, almost anxiously.

A couple hours later, we're all tired of burning stuff and kind of drunk. The sky is almost black. We head back into the car, it's totally freezing outside.

We just sit for a while, too wasted to really want to attempt breaking the law by driving. I'm laying in the backseat, observing the sky. There are no stars. The clearness didn't last long…

Axel and Riku toss back and forth abstract concepts. I love it when people get philosophical when they're drunk. I kind of really like drunken people in general, if they're not being annoying. Which they often are.

"So, the Young Hegelians argued that the tenets of a government were based on religion. And that is how elitism can play into social-class." This is Axel. This is his sixth beer.

"Well, yeah, but it's basically all tainted concepts – really misguided. Young Hegelians kind of overlooked the fact that Hegel was seeing Prussia as some kind of utopia." Says Riku, and tosses his fourth beer out the window.

"Hegel didn't have the wrong idea – religious dogma has set the structure for lots of laws."

Riku smiles.

"Don't forget what Marx concluded. 'Snot religion, but capitalism that gives power to an establishment. Never forget that. A good concept to remember is how religion can be a tool. Stuff like dogmas are ideological superstructures and ways to control the mind, and ultimately a people."

Axel laughs in amusement,

"Oh, right,_ '__Die Religion… __ist__ das Opium des __Volkes__'_."

I check my phone. It's after ten. I've only had two beers.

"D'you guys want me to drive?" I ask, sitting up.

"Of course not, silly boy." Says Axel, and hits the gas. The car speeds through the forest. If there's anything in this world that can dissolve someone's demoralization, it's a perilous event. I'm pretty sure that an entire half of a tree is stuck in Axel's car somehow, when we arrive home.

"Well, get out." Slurs Axel, as he stops in front of my house. "Roxas, good night. I'll to my truckle bed. This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep."

"You're very drunk, Mercutio." I mutter, stepping out. He's right though, it's very cold out here.

"Come, he hath hid himself among these trees, to be consorted with the humorous night. Blind is his love and best befits the dark." Riku pipes in.

"Get out of here, before the neighbors hear you." I say in irritation, and the two of them just drive away, giggling like idiots.

Whatever. At least now, I remember that they're incredibly intelligent.

I close the front door behind me. Namine's got to be home by now… she doesn't like to stay out late. I walk upstairs. I walk into the bathroom. She's in there, stroking her hair with a thick brush. I lean, longingly against the doorframe, watching her. She turns around to look at me, eyes silently pleading.

"It's so cold," she says quietly, and moves into my arms. My heartbeat sinks into my stomach.

"Yeah. It sure is."

"I went to Starbucks with Kairi."

"Don't do that." I chuckle into her hair, "You know that makes me mad."

"Sorry. It's not like I enjoy it. Kairi thinks paying five dollars for a latte is trendy."

I smile against the top of her head. I realized that I missed my sister. But wait, I can't make some kind of emotional bond like this; we're already in an awful situation… we can't let ourselves become clingy.

"I'm frustrated," she says, turning her face out of my chest.

"Hmm?"

"You can talk to Axel and Riku about this anarcho-commune that you're so excited about whenever you want, but all I really have is Kairi. And she's kind of retarded."

"You can talk to _me _about it," I remind her.

"I'm younger than you guys. And female." She sighs, discouraged. "I really, really don't like being a small woman right now."

"I can make you _love _being a woman right now," I growl into her neck, and I'm suddenly surprised at myself. My hands are now on her back, under her shirt. I hear her hurried breathing against my collarbone.

"Remember, you said - Roxas," she whispers shakily, as my hands travel slowly downward to the base of the small of her back, that little area between a woman's hips, "Not tonight, right? I don't… I don't think…"

"I'm not ready either. Don't worry." I say quietly, and remove my hands, taking a step back. "Sorry."

"Do you still feel…" her eyes flick about tensely, "That sort of sibling-ish-"

"Damn right, I do." I blurt out, "I hope that never goes away. You'd better feel that way, too, or we have to stop."

"I know that."

"… We have to stop, either way, really."

"… Yeah?" she looks at me sadly.

I think for a moment. There's an inevitable wall we're going to hit pretty soon, I just know it. We're not stupid. And we do care. But it's like an addiction. Well, maybe. Is our relationship an addiction? It's like asking if eating is an addiction. I suppose, everything is an addiction. Starvation is a withdrawal syndrome, in its own way.

"I'm kind of addicted to you." I declare, leaning against the doorframe.

"… I see."

"Well, I mean, it's a good thing."

She glares at me.

"Well, that's not true," I mumble awkwardly. Ugh. There is positively no way to find something complimentary out of this situation. "Listen, we should just-"

"There are no fucking _guidelines _for what we've gotten ourselves into, Roxas."

I sigh. I know. You're right. Why are you right about everything? Is it because I just ultimately want to be sexual with you? Is my mind messed up about stuff again?

The phone rings. There's a phone in the hallway, next to the stairs. Namine immediately moves out of the bathroom to answer it. I follow quietly behind her.

"Hello?" A muffled voice that I can't recognize from the receiver. Namine's face is suddenly masked with shock. She doesn't look at me, she just stares forward, silently listening to the female on the phone, and then the male that speaks for a minute or two afterwards. She looks like she's just remembered something she's forgotten for years.

"Uh-huh. Okay… goodbye." She says after about eight minutes, and hangs up. I just kind of wait for something to come out of her mouth.

"That was our parents."

Oh. Ok. I get it. I walk downstairs. I sit down in front of the window. It's too dark to see anything outside.

It's like a sea of revelation. How _impenetrable _of a wall have I BUILT around the two of us?! I had forgotten. I almost, completely forgot.

Hearing our parents' voices herself – having to communicate – may have been more devastating to Namine. She walks downstairs and sits right next to me on the floor. I turn to look at her. She's pale, her mouth slightly open.

"I don't feel good." She mumbles.

I try to put an arm around her.

"Don't touch me, please."

God. This could be really bad.

"I'm surprised _you're _not throwing up on the floor right now."

That's pretty demeaning. But whatever. Please, just don't cry.

"I…" she sighs, "I don't know what to do."

"Just wait." I mutter.

"For what?"

Yeah, really. For what? For the awfulness of this situation to dissipate? That's never gonna happen.

"They felt bad about not calling us sooner," she chokes out, and then starts to cry, full on. She has to put a hand over her mouth to keep the wailing noises from escaping.

Jesus God. The idea that the two of us still have parents is a strange and otherworldly concept. I mean, we never really had very supportive parents. Now they're gone, and _this _has happened. Then, they suddenly appear again. And the notion is fresh in our minds, exactly what kind of thing we've put ourselves through.

Namine just keeps getting louder and louder. Like a two-year-old throwing a tantrum. She curls into a little ball, her arms around her knees, and just cries. This is actually a phenomenon. Namine doesn't cry much, and she's never really cried so much like this. My best guess is she's having a kind of mental breakdown.

I really can't help you, Namine. If I don't just sit still, and watch, I'm gonna freak out too. Breathe in, breathe out.

…

This isn't real…

…

Oh shut up. Yeah, it is. Don't be a child, Roxas.

I wrap my arms around this tiny, shivering ball.

"Don't _touch _me!" She shrieks, but I don't let go. She doesn't try to resist, she just shakes harder.

"Don't touch me… please don't touch me…" She weeps, and then just sobs quietly. I rock her gently in my arms. I pull her into my lap. She seems so little.

Well, that's it, I guess. In the end, we can't deny our own family. We can't let go. We should just hold on. And so that's what I do. I just hold on.

I don't really know how long I sat there, with this child in my lap, but I figured that she'd never actually fall asleep in my arms, and I'd guess that after about twenty minutes she finally said,

"I want to go upstairs."

So I carry her to my bedroom. This is what she wanted, right? I lay her down on the bed, and then I close the door.

There's a little bit of light coming from the window outside. Enough for her to be able to see some outlines of my body as I undress down to my boxers. Namine scoots over to the end of the bed and begins pulling off her clothing, too. She strips down to only her panties, then strides over to me. She takes my hand in her small one. She places it on her collarbone, and slowly leads it down. Down her chest. Over her breasts. Down her stomach. She lets my fingers trace her waist, then down. Down.

She gasps.

"Th-that's enough," she stutters. I had almost slipped my hand into her underwear. She walks to my dresser to find a t-shirt, assumedly. While she fishes around in there, I bring my hand to my face. It smells like my sister, so I guess it smells like me.

She crawls into the bed. I get in behind her. I pull her close to me. This is called spooning, correct? It's a weird term, for such a natural position. I bury my face in her hair. It smells exactly like my pillow. Namine must smell exactly like me.

I don't like that.

I move away from her.

I don't want to touch her.

Because I'm really, _really _screwing things up for us.

I blink, and a couple tears actually fall onto the mattress. I don't think she saw.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: **So, it's 2010. Welcome to the future.

x

The subconscious is a frightening place. There's no use elaborating on the mechanics of sleep, for I am no scientist, but it's easy to say that you can get lost, as well as found.

Simple, little things - like the freshness of fabric softener, or having devoured a bar of dark chocolate before bed – can turn your dreams into beautiful, good-smelling refuges or hellish dead-space with crispy fetuses lying around, everywhere.

And it's not an easy task, to sleep well. For some people, especially the elderly, you have to work _hard_ to get good, natural sleep.

I'm a young, spunky lad. And I sleep like an ancient hyena on crack.

If I eat something before bed, I'll vomit, obviously. But sometimes there are other underlying things to keep me from sleeping. Not even the average stuff, like watching horror movies keep me awake, because honestly, children's television shows frighten me more; the whole brainwashing regime of the media at the tips of our posterity, and all.

Weird stuff, like faint scents and a week-unwashed comforter will keep me from sleeping. Slumber-interrupting catalysts not only make me uncomfortable, but emotionally unstable as well. Spending the night at Riku's house has always been a no-go, because of all the flashing computer lights – they made me think too much, and get homesick. And also, I don't think Riku's family sleeps.

So, imagine my troubles in my bedroom, as my sisters' sleeping form is pressed to my back… a crumpled fist on my side. I can't sleep with someone else in the bed with me. It may be impossible, if not for the shining glory of fatigue at four in the morning, when I may have fallen asleep. I think I dream of myself as a sickly, raspy child, wandering aimlessly around my backyard.

"You're getting worse." Namine says quietly, wiping a wet washcloth on my face at 7:00AM. I've stopped counting how many times I've vomited since six-ish. I'm now lying weakly on my bed. My head in her lap. I feel quite awful, actually. It's not only my stomach that aches, but also my pride. I can barely move.

I mumble something like, 'pathetic.'

"You're not pathetic." She sighs, "You didn't sleep. And you're sick."

"Please stop talking…"

"Excuse me?" she says, slightly offended.

"The vibrations in your voice are gonna make me throw up again."

"If you're gonna puke, then I'll just leave." She says bluntly, and starts to move the side of the bed. I quickly clasp a hand to her knee.

"Don't do that, your smell mediates everything. If we're just still, we'll be serene." She moves back into a sitting position. "And don't say _puke_," I groan, "It sounds so awful."

She cautiously places a hand on my head.

Jesus God, don't let me die. If this is my 'divine' punishment, then I'll be an evangelist. I'll memorize the entire book of genesis, if it'll make this all go away. Toss me your book, and I'll read it. You've got a heavenly cure for this? Name it. Is it because of me and my sister?

You and your _creeds _are so fucking human. Don't promise me deliverance with your contradictory bullshit.

As if it were a real message from God, an absurd jolt of pain wrenches my stomach. I yelp out like a _child_ into Namine's thigh. I feel her place a nervous hand on my cheek, but I'm blinded by this incredible aching. I can't stop shuddering.

"Ah..." she breathes, probably scared, "Are you ok, Roxas?"

Eventually, everything slows down, and I'm left in this exhausted, throbbing heap. I can't stop shaking, just a little. Namine's hand travels from my face down to my stomach, just below my ribcage.

"You should sleep." She mutters dimly.

I draw in a quivery breath.

"It hurts," I whisper.

So very pathetic. This is basically what I've been reduced to. Namine just sits there, stroking my hair until I manage to fall asleep again.

-

Explain to me, the significance of this. How can you expect me to unhinge myself from my most basic desires? And who exactly are you? Who is _God_?

If you can help me, then fine. Give me proof. You know me, so let me know you. You know my name. You _also _know how to hurt me.

But you _don't _take away my sister, do you? This either means that you are a God with wavering powers, or a very bored God who likes to animate his weak little puppets. Dig your invisible fist into my stomach and tear out all of my being, just so that I don't look at Namine like a woman. You know what makes me tick, right?

So let's make a deal. I've shown you, I've practically given you everything. So give _me _something. Don't give me your 'works in mysterious ways' crap, either.

What do you want? What could you possibly _gain _from me, huh? Go torture someone else, someone who –

…

It couldn't possibly get much worse than me, huh?

I love my sister. And that is, indeed, the most delicate way of putting it.

Damn it! Damn it, damn it, _damn it!_

Please, pardon my _sin_, for loving my _fucking family_.

Where the hell do I go from here? I'm lost, reduced to a child. A wandering, snot-nosed child pursuing another even smaller child.

God, Namine, why are you so _stupid_? Why did you let me do this to you? Why are you letting me do this to myself? You _idiot!_

Why are you so damn attractive?! Why do you have to wander around this house, sleep in this bed, make me run around like an absolute fool so I can, maybe, just _look _at you?

…

Oh, shut up. God is punishing me. I deserve to be punished. This is my ordeal.

… So, what do you want? Do you want me to beg? Do you want me to slide off of this bed, on my knees, and plead you to forgive me for wanting my sister?

I… I really should.

But I won't. Because I can't move.

I don't want to think about what my redemption will be. Tell me, how can I be saved?

…

Why am I arguing with God?

I'm an idiot. I thought I had concluded a long time ago what was, and wasn't there to argue _with_.

-

Soft, and gentle. The smell of a baby cartoon sheep. Floating pillows. The scent of thunder and lightening. Not sweet. Warm, and alluring. Namine. Namine has been sleeping in my bed. And It's gonna take forever to get her essence out of it.

I sit up, carefully. I'm okay. Weak, but not ill.

I feel a lot better. The door is open. Without checking the clock, I head downstairs. It could be very late, but it really doesn't matter anymore. We're not leaving tonight. We're not leaving tomorrow.

I make myself some toast. I feel even better. I place the dishes next to the sink. Then, I take a shower.

Even bathroom smells like Namine. I don't waste my time with my hands under the water. I just get clean. I get warm, then hot. A little too hot. I turn water off, and then step out. I look in the mirror.

Who am I, exactly? A stupid question. There are no answers for that. Philosophy, when alone, is not an activity. It's a demon that wrenches at the souls of the weak, the lost, and the despairing. Is it too late for me? I'm weak. I'm lost. But am I in despair?

That depends on my ultimate question: am I a man, or a child? If I am a man, then I am despairing. If I am a child, then I am simply misplaced - unexposed to people and events that may teach me. Perhaps the solitude is bringing out the very _sad _child within me.

My eyes have very little light in them. They're dull. I pull on some random clothes from the counter. I hear a thunderclap from outside.

I will force myself to make a choice. What do I want? That's simple, _and _it's mutual. I want my sister. I want to make love to Namine.

That's a grotesquely stupid way to put it. I don't want to make love to Namine; I want to have sex with her. I could put in simpler terms than that, but I want to handle this with practicality.

I count my age on my fingers. _There's _some visionary irony for you.

I step out of the bathroom. Namine's already in the hall, waiting.

"I'm not going to tell you that I want to make love to you." I state, assuredly.

"I was hoping you wouldn't. That might actually make _me _sick." She replies, her voice almost a whisper, and she walks into my bedroom.

I sigh. Are we connected as a brother and sister?

Of course we are. Don't lie to yourself. I close the door behind me.

"_What _exactly, _would _make you sick?" I ask, nervously, taking a step towards her.

"What… do you mean?" She says uneasily.

"Tell me what I _can't _do," I say hoarsely, suddenly becoming desperately afraid, and get close to her, her face just below mine. I need to see her, to know that this is real.

She looks at me softly. Her eyes, _ever so gently_, shred my heart to pieces. She looks so fucking _secure._

"Do anything," she whispers, and begins to kiss me, "I trust you."

"Don't _trust _me Namine," I moan, feeling myself wrap my arms around her midsection, ungracefully pulling her very close to me.

"What else can I do, Roxas?" she asks, and hastily crushes her mouth against mine, sliding her fingers down my stomach. Down… it's all I can do to keep myself from just knocking her onto my bed, and I protest with my mouth.

"Please don't trust me," It comes out very strangled.

"Roxas…"

"I'm your brother, just _listen _to me," I beg, finally, and then thrust my mouth against hers. She makes a little whimpering noise as I begin pulling on her shirt. She backs away from me for a moment to tear it away. We then get a glimpse of each other in complete and utter fear, a reflected terror of everything that is to occur.

I quickly pull off whatever shirt or sweatshirt I had on. She moves forward to kiss my neck. My breathing hastens again. I'm scared. I'm really scared. She must be, too. Her breath is shaky as she moves down my collarbone, my chest… I remove her bra. It was simple enough, anyway. She steps out of her jeans, and then leads me towards my bed. She sets me on the edge, and I keep my hands on either side of me. She undoes my pants, and pulls them off, along with my boxers. She steps out of her underwear.

Naked, anxious simplicity. _All lies. _The human body is beautiful, but so freaking intimidating. Looking is frightening enough, but touching might just break you.

Shut up. Too late to contemplate exactly what's going on at _this _point.

Her reaction to my nudity makes me wonder if she's ever even seen a penis before. She just stands there, kind of awestruck. Scared.

I look at her seriously.

"This is not a _learning experience_, Namine." I mutter, trying to keep my voice from cracking, "Do you understand that?"

"Of _course _I do!" She cries, "So just… shut up and lie down."

"No way. _You _lie down."

She scowls at me, her face turning very red, and gets on the bed. She lies down, lengthwise. I stand over her, leaning over, supporting myself with my hands on either side of her shoulders.

"I could…" I take a deep breath, then swallow, "I could tell you to do that same thing you asked me to do, y'know, the visioning thing…"

"I'd rather not." She whispers, "But you can still kiss me."

"Okay." I kiss her. I move on top of her. It's crazy, how suddenly I feel like I _need _this so badly. I drag some of the blankets over us.

"Namine… tell me _now _to stop." I shudder.

"I can't." she murmurs, "I… it's ok."

"Don't _ever _say it's ok," I whisper into her shoulder, and without thinking, I immediately begin. She gasps, in pain, I think.

"You ok?" I choke out, trying dreadfully to keep still, inside of her.

"Uh-huh…" she breathes, moving her hands to my back. I can feel her fingernails digging into my skin.

I find it very difficult to understand this situation. I try not to think of this as a terrible thing. It's too late now, anyway. She breathes in sharply with every move I make. It's strange to hear myself. Everything else is simple. Disgusting, but simple. And I love her. Isn't that all that matters?

Some jarring, throaty noise comes out of me that I can barely recognize. I mean, this is basically everything I had initially expected, except that Namine isn't herself either. I refuse to accept that wearen't human at this stage. We have to be. Our humanity is our most precious asset when humans do horrible or beautiful things.

Is this beautiful? Of course not. I don't know. I really don't know anything anymore. I'm then crying out into her shoulder; just indistinct noises that I really can't control. I think I say her name a couple times. Namine's sharp breathing noises turn into very loose moaning, and her body shakes below mine.

This is perhaps more than I had expected. But so fucking natural. Too natural. I groan – it's an angry noise. Perhaps we don't sound too contradictory… she sounds like she's in pain. But she couldn't be, physically. I sound angry. I'm not angry, physically. It's beginning to hurt, though. I thrust harder.

It's very unreal, all of this. Soon enough, it all crams together; the soft, mislaid noises Namine makes, the unruly groans that come out of me, movement. I wouldn't call it synchronization. Sex isn't synchronization. I'd heard it before somewhere: 'Sex isn't real.'

Namine screams. I'm about to lose it. I grab the headboard quickly, and yell.

Just breathing. Everything else, silent.

…

This, of course, isn't one of those cliché happy endings. It's something much more dark than that.

I quickly pull out of her. I jerk away. She sits up quickly, too, and grabs a pillow.

We can't look at each other. I just find myself in complete shock. Fear. I'm covered in sweat.

I can hear Namine's shaky breath. I still haven't caught mine.

We finally look at each other in that shared, sudden terror.

…

And we both burst into tears.

"I'm so sorry…" I moan, after a few moments of uncontrollable sobbing. I _still _can't catch my breath. Namine just cries.

We're both in tears as we pull on our clothes. Namine is only able to pull on her underwear and her shirt before she just collapses onto the bed, wailing. I'm wearing a shirt and jeans when I kneel on the floor, my face buried in the mattress. I don't care if I suffocate. In the back of my mind I realize that I'm not nauseous at all.

"What the _fuck _are we supposed to do now?!" she cries, pounding a fist into the bed.

"I don't know…" I sob. I can't stand to look at her.

Why are we so immature?! Did we _seriously _think we could handle this kind of thing? What the hell are our options?

I'm not sick though.

Dear God, _yes I am!_

Namine just keeps weeping sadly into a blanket.

I feel myself shaking harder.

"Goddamnit, Namine, we just lost it. We knew we couldn't…" I choke on more tears, "We can't forget that we're-"

"Don't _say _it!" she shrieks.

So I don't say it. I just cry. There's really nothing else left but to let go. I lift my face up from the mattress, and I see specks of blood on the bed. And I realize exactly _how _unprepared we were, at that moment. And then I need to vomit.

As I finish coughing into the toilet, Namine says:

"Nothing is going to happen, henceforth." She's splashing water onto her face.

"How the hell can you say something like that?" I ask, feebly.

"I'm on my period, now." She murmurs. Then, "Quick, flush that."

And she spills her guts, too.

"Thank God…" I whisper, beginning to run water over a toothbrush, feeling another tear slide off my face.

x

This, in itself, is the ultimate inconsistency of both super-exposure and lack of exposure. I don't think I need to explain why.

Namine is lying on my bed. She looks dead. I poke her in the back.

"I'm in pain." She says hoarsely.

"Me too," I mumble, sitting down.

"I've spent too much time here." She sighs.

"Yeah, it's awful."

Moment silent.

"Can I sleep here again? I can't move."

"That's fine. I'm not going to sleep, anyway." I may not sleep again, ever.

Everything is dimmed out. Everything else but this moment, this room, this bed, is grey and fuzzy. This, however, is not sharp. What I see isn't clear.

It's gotta be late. The clock says 3:00AM. I stand up and head downstairs. In the kitchen, there's this awful little picture that Namine must have drawn in elementary school taped to the refrigerator. My parents must have liked it because it's sentimental. It's a picture of both Namine and I. Our parent's are in the background. Obviously, because the two of us are in the foreground, we are given more detail. There's a little crayon sketch of an old deceased dog we had back then, running on the grass with our parents.

I really hated this picture, because I didn't like the idea of my stupid baby sister making any kind of attachment to me. I really protested it being put on the fridge. I was insecure about being un-athletic and sick all of the time… it was a rough stage for me.

To tell the truth, I still hate that picture.

I cross the kitchen, then step outside into the backyard, in front of the garden. I close my eyes.

I breathe in, and breathe out.

Don't cry.

I open them. My backyard is my childhood. This was a very stupid place to go. Because suddenly I'm just crying, like a child.

"God damn it…"

There has to be some kind of resolution.

It's too cold out here.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: **I'm kinda mad again.

x

I've been jetlagged. Winter breaks are peculiar.

When unconditioned and unattended, life and perception just becomes one: there's not really such a thing as time. The world floats. Then suddenly, when back in motion, it's a kick in the face with iron stilettos. When you're with someone you enjoy talking to, it's not so bad… but after a while you begin to hate them, too. It makes me feel bad about calling Sora a floating, nebular entity a week ago.

My body really aches right now. I'm sitting on the couch, watching the news, trying to get back with the world.

I wonder if through modernization and industrialism, we've been fazed. If you took a metal string and decapitated someone with it 200 years ago, it'd be a shock, you'd be punished for it, but you might also be called creative. Now, if you saw that on the news, you'd say something like, 'Whatever. I could have come up with something like that.'

But more people died back then, right?

Never mind. Cholera.

I took it as a shock when I saw the word 'Friday' on the news. I woke up a few hours ago, at 3:00PM or something.

I don't think I'm in denial. At least, I hope not. I still can't imagine our parents coming home… and school? Did we _ever_ go to school?

One time, when I was still in the eighth grade, I had a stomach scope; gastroenterologists trying to understand my illness or whatever. I went to the hospital, was drugged, and they stuck a tube down my throat while I was knocked out. They took pictures and everything. They discovered a lot of inflammation, and immediately put me on this medication which name I can't remember.

I woke up, still full of drugs. I thought I was completely aware. So I pulled out my cell-phone and called Axel. I honestly don't remember what I said. Oh wait:

_"There's this kid in this other room next to me who's screaming his ass off…"_

_ "That's nice, Roxas."_

_ "Yeah, he's probably gonna die. Oh, guess what."_

_ "What?"_

_ "When I was in the post-operation room, I saw this other guy around my age wearing that stupid hospital gown that you have to wear… he was in this position where I could see his junk."_

_ "That's nice, Roxas."_

_ "But he was asleep."_

_ "Ok then. I have to go, now."_

_ "Am I freaking you out?" _I remember asking, giddy and mostly anesthetized.

_"Yeah, you're high, dude."_

_ "I guess so. But it's cool right?"_

And then he hung up. A couple hours later I yelled at my parents for giving me my phone _as soon as I woke up._

I flip a couple channels until I get a commercial with some British guy. Then a documentary about tigers comes on. I mute the TV, and call Axel.

"Hello?"

"Guess what day it is?"

"Friday,"

"Yeah, it's weird."

"Because you've been locked up in your house for so long, dude. Come out and play."

I think for a moment.

"I'm watching tigers."

"Done anything cool recently?"

I was really hoping to talk about something brainless.

"… No."

"Oh, really?"

"No, nothing."

Moment silent.

"You don't sound good." He says seriously.

"… I'm not good."

"I'll come pick you up."

"That's not necessary," I say quickly, "I don't think I want to talk."

"And so, you called me."

"Sorry." And I hang up.

And I feel like a middle-schooler again. I stare at the tigers.

A few minutes pass, and Namine drifts into the living room. We look at each other for a few seconds. She slowly walks over to the couch, and sits as far away from me as possible, trying to concentrate on the TV.

"What the hell are you doing?" I ask, slightly irritated.

"I don't know…" she mutters, agitated, and moves over into my arms, burying her face in my t-shirt. I place a hand on her head.

"You're warm."

"Yeah, I think I've got a fever."

"You could be getting sick," I mumble, amused.

"How cute," she says hoarsely, and slides her face down into my lap. I shift her a bit away from my crotch-region. Her face feels hot against my inner-thigh.

"Yeah, you're definitely sick."

"What are we gonna do?"

"I think we should stop asking ourselves that, 'cause we don't get any answers."

She makes a pained noise into my lap.

"What hurts?" I ask, becoming concerned.

"Everything,"

"You can't have mono."

"Unless you're immune," she suggests wearily.

"I vomit nearly everyday, Namine, I'm not immune to anything."

"Mostly here," she says, putting a hand on her lower abdomen and flipping over so she's looking up at me.

My heart drops into my stomach for a second. A very cold sweat starts on the back of my neck.

"What does that mean?" I ask, faintly.

"_Not_ what you're thinking." She says in a scared voice.

I sit for a moment, probably more frightened than I've ever been before.

"I don't like the sound of this at all." It comes out shaky.

"There's no way," she whispers, "I'm _bleeding, _Roxas."

"I don't care." I pull her into a sitting position, and place a hand on her forehead. Definitely hot. "Stay here. I'll be back as soon as possible."

I get up, push her off of me, pull on some shoes and a coat, and run. It's cold. I run for fifteen minutes, as fast as possible.

I'm actually kind of proud of myself; I get to Riku's drug 'store' much faster than I thought I would. It must be the panic. I decide to shoplift, which is very stupid, because some kid with a brunette mullet that I don't recognize is asleep on a rifle at the counter. But he looks too stupid to be able to operate such a piece of machinery, even while asleep.

I run back home in about twelve minutes, in fear that the kid would shoot me if he woke up. I hear a faint strumming of an electric stringed instrument of some sort as I reach the intersection, and I rush into the house.

Namine's red face turns even redder as I thrust a few packages into her lap.

"Pee on these." I order, breathing heavily.

"It won't work."

"Do it anyway."

"I refuse." She mutters, becoming angry, "You clearly know nothing of obstetrics."

"Just do it," I sigh, feeling frustrated and inhumanly guilty.

"Why don't _you _pee on them?" she growls.

"That's not funny."

"Fine, Goddamnit, if it'll make you shut up." She barks, and walks upstairs.

I place a hand on the arm of the couch. It really is useless… even if she wasn't menstruating; it'd be too early to figure anything out yet. Stupid.

I run my hands through my hair for a few minutes, very unhappy with myself. I don't think I've ever felt more unintelligent or childish in years.

I saunter upstairs and stand outside of the bathroom.

"Namine?"

"I feel bad," she calls, quietly from inside.

What?

"Why? What's going on?"

"Chill out, it's all negative."

I open the door and walk inside. She's sitting on the counter. I look in the mirror… and feel sick. Namine's sitting sadly on the counter, peering down into the trashcan next to the toilet. She looks so small. Tiny. A lot smaller than me.

"How tall are you?" I ask, dully.

"About five feet."

"I might be 5'11".

x

You walk around feeling like you want to kill someone all the time. Because after a while, you realize that all of that shit piled up behind your eyes that you thought was a brain is a trap.

Do not forget this.

Nature is your puppet master. She is supplied with tools. One of them is to make the sacks of meat that call themselves 'humans' feel a cognitive brainwashing called 'love.' She makes you want to use the awkward hunks of meat attached to your body, and tells you it's beautiful.

It's not beautiful. It's actually pretty disgusting.

You sick fucks.

And so, I believe Namine and I have reached this point. No longer disgusted with ourselves in one way, and utterly mortified in another. Succumbing to something so awful because we were too weak to prevent it.

The sick, twisted puppets of some large walrus on another planet with some strings and an eye patch. Perhaps that is the near unattainable enlightenment. The thing all people seek, all romantics fall on their knees to. It makes the people who just never cared say, 'Hey guess who's on the top of the food chain now? Your brains have been melted.'

But hey, we're organisms. We are indeed programmed. You can't run away.

At least not now.

I'm sure, that in our lifetimes, they'll create an antibody. An efficient little robot that floats in your bloodstream. Detoxes you. You'll drink five gas-station energy drinks and inhale paint for an hour and make out with a leper and your robot will just clean you up. You'll be a fresh human. Synonymous with immortal.

Imagine the mass production of these little guys, all floating around in our bloodstreams, in bulk. Name them, please, for your amusement. It's what humans do.

_'My little Robo-Tommy is fixin' up my colon.'_

_ 'How sweet, my intestinal blockage is being fixed by Robo-Gretchen.'_

Well, it'd be better to give them pet names.

Robo-Fido.

And so, what does this lead to? Immortality? A never ending race?

We age because we're slowly dying. If we don't even _start _dying, do we age? Are we newborns forever? That would suck.

Maybe.

So then, we're not humans. Human nature is fake, just like everything else. So what procedures do we follow? Do we flow with consciousness? It seems so overrated, but it may just be all we have. If you sit up, and realize that you're a robot in a violent wave, you could either lose it and kill yourself or just live.

Shake in fear or just chill out and not take it so seriously.

…

And so, imagine this.

You're walking down a sandy beach. It's quiet, and lovely. Nobody's there. You're relaxed. There are no houses. The sun is sinking, ever so slowly. The water is pink and shiny. You hear the rustle of the trees. Your own heartbeat. Breathe in and out.

You keep walking.

You step on some flat rocks, and you see a crab scuttle out of the water. The sand gets a little harder. You step on a little plastic shovel and look up and see a small family sitting there, this sickenly adorable cluster of people. A mom and a dad, and two children. Two little blonde children, a boy and a girl. The little boy looks angry because he has to wait for someone to apply sunscreen on his fleshy little back. Protecting him from something that he'll die from in a few short years.

The little girl pokes at a crab. You can see some sand spill out of her bathing suit. The little boy runs up to the girl with a bottle of flavored-water and hits her on the back of the head, and she starts shrieking.

You keep walking. More people. More children. More toys. More bottles of expensive beverages. Broken sunglasses. Cigarette butts. Giant, floppy hats and giant floppy breasts.

Trust me, the sickest stuff in the world can be found at a family-friendly beach.

You keep walking, and you see this guy, this really obese guy. He's got a nasty, salty comb over, and a gut that is brownish-red above his navel and white below it. He's hairy. He's got a pubic-hair mustache with bits of chocolate ice-cream in it. He licks his ice-cream. His huge, yellow trunks sag a little. A seagull flutters over and lands on his head, screeches, and flies away. He takes off his eighties sunglasses and looks at you and says:

"You're gonna die soon."

But he's fat. So you don't listen to him.

You keep walking. You start to see old people. Gross, hideous old people. Old women with stretch marks on every inch of their skin. Spider veins. Men with thick hair on their backs and thin hair on their heads. Sad, sad old people taking pictures of their sweet, young family and pictures of themselves. To capture the pathetic moment. The pathetic ends of their lives.

You keep walking. A younger person, maybe a lifeguard runs up to you and says in a youthful voice:

_"You might not wanna go any further,"_

You keep walking. You hear the guy call:

_"Dude, really, it's crazy out there!"_

And you keep walking. And ahead of you, there's a clan of nudists. At the nudists beach. They're running around, shrieking nakedly, throwing sand in each others faces and having casual sex on the beach.

You stop walking.

And you tear all of your clothes off. You run, screaming. You have a blast. You get drunk. The family friendly beach looks over occasionally, disgusted, but you just don't care.

And then you pull out a gun and shoot everybody. And you steal their stuff, and vacation elsewhere.

"And what's the moral of this story?" Namine asks.

"That I hate the beach, and I hate the world."

She rolls off of the couch like a log.

"We need to get out of here." I mumble. Namine looks up at me mischievously.

"Are those blonde children supposed to be us?" she asks, grinning.

"I guess. It's the devastation of your childhood that prepares you for the chaos of your adulthood."

"Adulthood sucks ass."

"Well yeah, they don't lie to you when they keep warning you about enjoying childhood."

"It might just be all about overlapping yourself," she sighs, "accumulating on top of everything you've had. You never believe you're whole, ever."

"It's simple." I say, tired of repeating this, "We are born to reproduce. Everything we feel is based off of sex, and we want sex because deep down, we want to reproduce. It's sick."

Namine looks at me, sadly.

"Is that true?"

"Yes, and don't deny it."

"Are you sure?"

"Almost positive."

"How awful…"

"It's really not. And it's okay to not be enlightened, either. Just live life, y'know?"

Namine curls into a little ball on the floor.

"I don't know how to live right now… with this. With us, like this."

I rest my chin on my folded hands, my elbows on my knees, looking down at her.

"Perhaps…" I think for a moment, "We're supposed to not let ourselves become something that other people would advise themselves away from. We don't want to become foolish storybook characters."

"I think I know what you mean."

"You know of V.C. Andrews, right?" I ask.

"Let's not talk about her."

"But listen though, her characters are all idiots! She's a good writer, I think, but the characters get themselves in really bad situations, like children."

"A lot of them _are _children."

"We'll they're stupid."

Moment silent.

"Sounds like us." She says quietly.

"We're _not _stupid."

"There's a way bigger difference between getting locked in an attic and being lazy around a house on winter break, Roxas." She says, almost angrily, "Between the two, _we _sound the stupidest."

Maybe she's right. Maybe we're just really dumb teenagers.

_Really fucking sick teenagers._

She flops over on her stomach, her face in the floor.

"Do you feel gross?" She asks.

"Yeah, but not sick. It's weird."

"That _is _weird…"

"Can we go, please?" I ask impatiently, and grab her arm and drag her out of the living-room, "Get your coat, we're gonna do something big, but small."

"Like setting a huge fire to a small rabbit?" She asks, stepping into her boots.

"Maybe something like that."

x

Axel, Riku, Kairi, Namine and I all stand knee deep in snow, a few hundred yards away from the site where we had burned things however many days ago. It's weird, because I don't want to say the words 'Winter Wonderland.' It's not wonderful or anything. Powdery shit falling from the sky is irritating.

Axel takes a chug out of his beer and hooks an arm around my neck, singing some old Irish-pub tune. Riku's a few paces away writing his name in urine. Kairi flops around in the snow like a slap-happy terrier, and Namine trails behind her wearily.

"It's days like these that make me want to…" Axel's voice trails off.

"Put a panda in a lumber mill?" I suggest.

"Nah, this is a good day. I think. Maybe." He cranes his neck to look back at Riku, "Do we have much alcohol left?"

"I brought a keg." Riku says, zipping up his fly.

"Yeah, it's a good day." Axel says.

I've suddenly got a lot on my mind. Some yards ahead of us, Namine drops to her knees in the snow, and runs her gloved fingers around, writing something. It's weird. I don't know what to think about it. In most ways, I'm grossed out. I'm utterly sickened with myself. But I'm not unhappy. But I'm not happy.

It's an arbitration of the ego… you can be a disgusting old man and a child at the same time.

"Once upon a time…" Axel slurs, "There was a wise man that traveled the world in search of the perfect slogan. His findings were null."

"Did he find a slogan?" I ask.

"Yeah. 'Fuck this shit.'"

I breathe out some steamy air and trot over to Namine, and sit next to her in the snow. She's writing:

_Satanas vobiscum_

I can't help but laugh.

"'Satan be with you?' The hell is wrong with you?"

"Oh, I dunno. I like Latin." She mumbles.

Kairi's still spluttering around everywhere like a fish. Thrashing around snow like a slam-dancer screaming _'I'm craazayy'_

"Why do you hang out with her?" I ask.

"She keeps me young."

"She might actually be classified as a retard."

"Kairi, get over here." Namine says, snapping her fingers. Kairi flails around over towards us.

"Where does hamburger come from?" I ask.

"Uh…" she says, "Amurrrca."

"Wrong," says Namine, and gets up and tackles her. Namine and Kairi wrestle with each other in the snow, and as if it were instinct, Riku, Axel and I sit down and watch.

"Maybe life isn't so bad after all," I say, taking a drink out of Axel's beer.

"That's the idea." Says Axel, "Kairi might just be a slab of granite, but she's pretty hot."

"And seriously, so is your sister." Says Riku.

I wrap my arms around myself and make a grumbling noise. This sucks. My two best friends, (dicknuts) being voyeurs in the snow over my sister and her retarded best friend. It's like pornography except less artistic and more pointless.

We all sit in the warm car for a couple hours. Getting wasted. Kairi's asleep under the backseats. Axel and Riku up front, talking about stuff that I realized makes them sound really lame. Che Guevara and all that.

I'm in the backseat, and Namine's head is in my lap. She's not looking at me. I brush some hair out of her eyes.

"We should be feeling awful right now." I say to her, quietly.

"I don't. The first step is denial."

"I might be in denial." I say.

"I think I am, too. Pretty soon we're gonna feel angry."

I take in a breath. Am I angry? Wasn't I already angry or something? Not really, I guess.

"I mostly feel like there's a big blank space from yesterday. Last night. Whatever."

"That's not good." She says very quietly. "We need to fix that."

Namine sits up, and sways a little from drunkenness, and says:

"Take us home, you filthy hipsters."

x

In my bedroom she points at my bed. She lifts up some sheets. There's that blood, there.

"Oh, shit," She says, and sniffs, "Now I remember." And she starts crying. I sit on the bed, and run my hands through my hair.

"This is so fucked up." I mumble.

"No _kidding_." She says, and starts sobbing.

"We didn't even use a condom."

She makes an awful groaning noise and sits next to me. She puts her face in her hands.

"It's just terrible, it's just awful, it's awful, this is so bad…"

"Nobody ever has to know." I almost whisper.

"You make it almost sound like… rape."

Christ.

"Don't ever say that." I mutter, gripping the sheets, "I don't want to think about that. I didn't… I don't think…"

"You didn't rape me. But still. It's terrible." She breathes in carefully, and a few tears drip out of the creases of her fingers onto her lap.

I stand up, and start taking off clothing. I just don't care anymore. Nothing happened, right? Maybe if I delude myself, I can live in denial forever. That might be nice.

I pull on a t-shirt and keep my boxers on.

Namine sniffs and says, "Are you tired already?"

"I'm drunk."

"We'll I guess that makes sense. I kinda am too."

"We shouldn't be together. Not for a while. At least a few hours. We don't even really realize what all's happened." I say.

So she stands up and leaves. I hear bath water running a few moments later.

Maybe if I think about it in sentence form, it'll come to me.

_My little sister._

_ Family._

Everyone on Earth is at least fiftieth cousins. I learned that in the 4th grade.

I guess that's a new way to look at it. That sucks.

And so, once upon a time I screwed myself over by getting drunk and thinking for a moment that this was all okay.

Rolling the word _incest _over in my head makes me feel sick for the first time in a long time.

If someone showed you the palm of their hand and it was really unwrinkled, like a smooth surface, would you trust them? I sure as hell wouldn't.

Think of it that way. The new and innovative isn't quite always the answer. Guess what, I've made the antibody. The little robot, remember? He's cute. He's efficient. He lives in your bloodstream.

And they all have the clap. When they're injected into your brain, you get the mindclap.

Congratulations. You have the mindclap.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: **I bet my next fic will take place in the summer.

I need to learn some new mind-blowing tactics. It's simply awful when you lose your sense of self, but trust me. When you need it most, and you lose it, your childhood becomes something you imperatively need. It's very, very easy to get caught up in life and throw away your childhood, and it just goes by faster and faster. That dim little light of magic that you once could cut with a knife is just growing dimmer and dimmer, and you have to catch it again or else you'll lose yourself in adulthood, forever.

I think that, maybe, you won't lose yourself though. I think that childhood is constantly reattach-able.

On Saturday morning, there is no sun. I slide out of my bed, and it is very dark. And warm – she probably turned the heat up a lot hotter during the night so she could sleep. I crawl on all fours, my body completely drained, for some reason. I stretch from the floor to turn the knob, and the hallway is very dark, too. I turn around to see my red clock from within my room say '9:00AM.' Very precise.

Down in the kitchen, I look out the window. Snow piles halfway up wall-length glass. If I put my hand directly in front of me on the window, glass the only thing separating me from dense, piled snow. I breathe out steam on the window. It's snowing so hard, and the sky is so thick, I have no clue where the sun might be, it looks like evening, if anything.

On the couch in the living room, I turn on the television. Weather guy says 'snowed in.'

I flop on the floor, and worm my way upstairs. Crawl into Namine's bedroom. Peek up from the top of the bed to look at her, sleeping. I poke her face. She frowns.

"Wake up, we're gonna die."

"Hurrnh?"

"We're _dying_. Ice demon reclaiming its rightful territory after its four-thousand-year slumber."

"Fuck you, I'm tired."

"For serious, Namine, check it. If you thought there was a lot of snow yesterday, you've got another thing coming."

"I don't care."

"Oh yes, you do." I proclaim, and gather her up inside all of her comforters and whatever. Like a homeless man and his bag of collected garbage. I haul her up like Saint Nicholas, which is difficult to reenact because I have no beard or reindeer and because she won't stop kicking and screaming, _'Put me down' _and _'I duhn want the snow' _and _'I'm gonna pee myself.'_

"Get a grip," I yell, and stumble out of the bedroom with her all slung over my shoulder. I nearly fall down the stairs and then toss her down in front of the window, where she explodes out of the blankets, all red and pissed-off looking. She scratches irritably at her face, and then looks out the window, and her mouth gets all wide.

"Whoa,"

"Yeah, whoa," I sit down on some of the bedding next to her.

"We could make, like, a snowman armada."

"For sure," I say, yawning. My eyes are closed, and I feel her place a hand on my lap, and her head curl into my shoulder. Her breath on my collarbone. I wish she wouldn't do this. It's screwing with what I've totally been trying to reconstruct in the past twenty-four hours. I grip her forearm.

"It's cliché shit, getting stuck here." I mutter.

"For totally."

So I get up, and she slides off of me. I step away a couple paces. She looks up at me, angrily.

"I'm not a fucking succubus, Roxas."

"You can't help it that you're so…" I can't find the word.

"I don't care _what _I am, I just want you stop doing this." She stands up.

"Doing _what_?" I ask, getting pretty mad.

"Treating me like a child!" she nearly yells.

"I fucking _wish _I were treating you like a child, Namine."

"It's too late to wish that, Roxas. We screwed this up."

"Therefore, I think it's _logical _not to get too, y'know…"

"_Tell _me what you want, when you want it! It's that simple, stop making these decisions on your own!"

"Goddamnit, Namine, It's not that _simple_!" I yell. For real, I haven't been this angry or frustrated in a long time.

"Yes it is! Just say it! Just say, 'I can't do it,' and that's it. You don't have to be embarrassed, it's just me!"

"It's just _you_, huh? Fuck that. Being mutual isn't what we're going for. It can't be - we'll get so fucked up."

"Why do you say that?!" She yells, starting to cry, "I don't think that's true at all!"

"_Think _about it, Namine." I say, seriously.

"I don't understand!"

"Who do you think I am?! What do you really think I want? What do you want, on the other hand? Do you want all of this to go away?" She actually nods. "Well, it's not going to! You don't want me to treat you like a child, but you sure do act like one."

"I'm not a fucking child!"

"Dear God, Namine, it's this!" I point at floor, where we just were, now we're standing. "We keep fucking doing this! Like we're stuck, like children."

"…I don't think _you're _a child, either." She says, tears dripping off her face.

"I don't care. It's not about what you think." I say, exasperated, getting nervous about this, "This is all in _my _head."

"You're freaking me out, Roxas."

I just stand there. What the hell am I saying? I'm leaving myself in a total void, and it hurts so much. Why am I not sick anymore? But, why does my head hurt so badly? There are so many fucking questions that I leave for myself.

…

"Namine… what do you think I want?"

She doesn't say anything. Silence.

I stare at my feet. There is no noise.

"Answer me. What do you think I _want_?"

…

"I…" she says hoarsely.

"You don't want to know, do you?"

"Roxas, stop…"

"You don't want to fucking _know _what's going on, do you?!"

"Roxas-"

"_Shut up! _You can't even imagine, can you? What do you think - tell me! What do you _think _I _want_?"

"I… I don't know-"

"You mean, you don't _want _to know?!" I shout, stepping forward and pulling her up to my height by the front of her shirt, "Does it make you worried? Does it make you _sick_, maybe?!"

"You're really scaring me…" she says pitifully, her eyes wide.

"Just fucking say it." I whisper, her shirt all gathered up in my fists.

"I… Roxas," she chokes out, and I move my face into her neck. I inhale deeply.

"I'm telling you, Namine, It just isn't that simple." I whisper, trying to make her understand. "It's just like that. I just can't tell you everything." And I let go of her shirt, and she slides out of my grip, and she staggers away. Her face is blank, I can't tell if she understands, or if she's just pissed off at me.

"So… what should I do?" she asks.

"I don't know." I mutter.

This is the ruins of all of my beautiful expectations for mutualism. The world is not perfect, connected. It's scary. Interpersonal connections are horrifying. And the deeper they are, the scarier.

My best advice, for _any _kind of relationship troubles, whether they are for as long-term as marriage or just trouble connecting with people firsthand, is this:

Walk away, like nothing ever happened. Pursue nothing. The world is dangerous.

I can hear Namine breathing.

"When I consider it," she says, "I just want you. I simply love you." She hesitates for a second, and says "Sex."

"You don't listen to a word I say, do you?" I ask, rhetorically. "You make this very difficult for me."

"I'm just getting it out, so you know."

"You don't actually feel that way. Everything will change once we start school again. Once you see your friends. Once I go to college. Then… it'll all make sense." I say, getting frightened.

"I _do _feel that way! And school is shit! And I don't have friends. And I don't think you'll want to go to college."

"Namine, for God's sake," I yell, "You really are just a kid. You just don't understand anything."

"I fucking _do_!" She yells, and she steps forwards and kisses me. She pulls on my shirt. And I step away, and hit her in the face.

At first, I kind of don't know what just happened. I didn't punch her or anything, like I felt like doing. Her face is completely stunned. She's looking away. A hand-mark forms on her cheek.

"… I am _so_ sorry." I mutter after a second.

"Why did you hit me?"

"I don't know."

She looks at me like I might be crazy, and then looks away, nervously.

"… You need to work on that," she mutters, turning to leave, but I grab her hand. She pushes away, and I grab her shoulders. "What the hell _do _you want, Roxas?" she asks, shaking a little, "'Cause sure don't know." Her eyes widen, "Do you want to beat me up or somethin'?" she sniffs.

"No!" I yell, "No. God. I don't – I don't know." I start coughing a little. I guess she thinks this is a slight diversion, because she kisses me again. I try not to spit in her mouth.

I mean, what the fuck. I'm getting nowhere. I don't want to do this again, I really don't. I'm just tired. But I can't run away. There's too much snow outside.

"Roxas," she whispers into my mouth.

"Yeah?" She stops moving. She looks at me with tired eyes.

"Do whatever you want."

…

Great. _I _have to make this decision. I'd be the bad guy. It's sure as hell a lot easier for weak people to flop out on decision making. But _I'm not _a strong person. She should know this by now.

"Geez, Namine," I say, like a little dirt-nosed schoolboy.

"You want me to do it for you?" she asks, her voice very low. I don't really know if I'm turned on or not. I don't need this, but I don't wanna throw it all away, either. I'm just too tired to make a decision. I sigh.

She kisses my neck. She bites it.

"Ow." I mumble, irritated.

"Sorry." She moves down further, kissing my collarbone. She pulls my shirt up. She keeps going down. Down. Okay. I want this. She stops right above my boxers.

I choke out a frustrated groan. She's taking this all slow, and stuff. She pulls off my shorts, and I can feel her breathing – there. Christ. I bury a hand in her hair. I feel her twitch beneath my grasp.

"Nuh-uh." She says, shaking her head.

"Come on," I sigh.

"Really, no."

"God, please." I groan, "Really. Please." I'm actually willing to beg for that.

"I _really _don't want to." She says, her breath making me shiver. I can feel my hips trembling. "Jesus, Roxas," she sighs, and stands up, taking me in her hand. She squeezes, hard.

"Ah! Ow…" Oh, God. This is really weird. And mean. But mostly weird.

I don't know. I don't really like this idea – her doing this for me. It's almost sicker than just doing _that_.

"Ah… Christ – stop." I splutter, pushing her away. I realize that I'm completely naked and she's fully dressed.

"Do you really want this?" She asks, tiredly. "Do you care?"

"I want you to kind of _like _it." I say, pulling her shirt over her head. I move to pull off her underwear, but I see she's got her arms crossed over her breasts.

"Are you scared?"

"No."

"Do you care?"

"Yeah."

"Then put your bloody arms down." I pull off her underwear and stand up. I kiss her on the cheek. God, I really wanna do this. Just 'cause… it's there. I dunno. One of her hands wraps around me again and I cough into her shoulder.

"Anh – don't do that unless you want this to end right now."

"Fine. Ugh. I was just trying to do the right thing." She grumbles, as I lick around her chest and stomach. "Roxas, you really want me to…?"

"Nah, it's ok." I mutter, and put my hands on her hips, readying myself.

"Jesus – not _standing up_."

I push her onto the floor, growling. I kneel over her. She looks all pissed off in the paleness of the snow. One of her hands touches my lower stomach, and I twitch a little.

"Now?" I ask, shuddering.

"Yeah," She takes a deep breath. So I do it.

And… I just kind of sit there. I mean, what the hell? I just don't have it in me – I feel like arguing like we're kids, or something. That's how this feels.

She shifts uncomfortably under me.

"Y'know…" she mumbles, "This isn't wonderful."

"Shut it," I snap, and start moving. This is so _weird_! It's hard to explain, like it's not sad anymore or something.

"This is bad," she pants.

"Yeah. I know."

"Really… It's – this is bad."

"Can we worry about it later, please?" I moan, doing this even though I know it'll kill me in a few short minutes.

I keep coughing as I'm doing this, like there's something stuck in my throat.

"I feel pathetic." She says, a breath between each word.

"Ok – ah – can we please talk later? It's…" I cough, "It's hard to do this in conversation. I mean, do you wanna flip over? 'Cause I'm not making much… much progress here."

"I mean, the whole subconscious avoiding thing. Suppressing something that's gonna tear us to oblivion later just for sex." Then she starts gasping.

"Yeah… I… know what you mean." I pant, jolting harder. I'm not proud of myself.

"Oh man, Roxas. Roxas."

"Will you shut up?" I shout, and keep shouting. "AH – sorry. I'm a hypocrite. Christ. Namine…"

She yells again, really loud, then her body slackens. Breathing heavily. She's gonna get it before I do. I mean the life-shattering awareness and everything.

"Fuck!" I shout, and fall over. And smell blood. God – that'll take forever to clean off. I look up to see if she's crying yet.

She's not. She just looks searingly angry.

"Get off."

I quickly stumble off, and stand up, attempting to wipe some of the blood off of me. She gets up too, and glares at me.

"You mad at me?" I growl at her, feeling my face heat up.

"Yeah."

"Piss off." I'd like to go take a shower.

Then, she shoves me, like she would do when she was nine or something. I notice that she covered in blood; it's smeared on her knees.

"What the fuck is your problem?"

"Aren't you mad that you feel like this?" she's turning pale.

"Like what?"

"A little kid. That's why you punched me, right?"

I really don't think so. I think I'm just losing my mind, or something.

She puts her hand to her forehead, and kneels back down on the floor.

"Too anemic to feel like a bitch?" I spit, acidly. She groans.

"Thank you, Roxas. I appreciate that."

"You're welcome." And I gather her up.

x

Namine floats absently in the bathtub. I'm kneeling over the sink, trying to get all the dried blood off.

"How disgusting."

"Yeah, whatever, douche bag." She mumbles.

"Will you lay off already? Don't you think it's kinda creepy that we're acting more like siblings now, suddenly?" I shudder. Siblings, again. God. She sighs.

"It's pretty fucking – I mean, _freaking _screwed up."

"That water's turning red."

"It's like, when you'd walk down the street with Mom and Dad and some lady would walk up and say, 'Oh, what beautiful little blonde children you have! They're so cute. I'm sure you adore them.' And then we'd want to kill each other afterwards. And we never knew why. Mom and dad would sit down at a bench somewhere and watch as we tried to pull each other's hair out and scratch each other with fingernails we never had, y'know, 'cause we chew 'em. We'd just be poking each other with meaty finger stubs."

"What the _fuck_…? Namine, that bath water looks like cherry kool-aid."

She yawns.

"Or like, whenever during Christmas…" her eyes droop, "And mom and dad would tell us to sing hymns and pray and shit. They'd say, 'Be thankful for each other, since so many people in Bosnia are fighting right now.' That whole thing was going on… 'It's so strange to see European people in such a poor state.' And then they'd walk away to secretly wrap our gifts. And we'd try to kill each other again, because we had some sort of contempt for each other."

"I don't remember doing that anytime recently."

"Well, we were always really young." And she falls asleep. That's probably bad. She's filled most of that bathtub with her own blood. So, I scoop her out and dump her on my bed. Which now has even more blood on it. I slap her face a couple times to wake her up.

"Hurrnh? Roxas, damn it, I'm tired. And cold." She curls up.

"You need to eat something; you look like a molted crab. All meaty and pale."

She sighs, and says nothing. So I go downstairs, and grab a can of spaghetti, and pour hot water into a pan.

"Eat this." I say, shoving a fork of cold spaghetti at her face, back upstairs. She takes it, and I ring out a washcloth in the pan, and splat it on her forehead. I grab a towel really quick from the bathroom and slide it underneath her, then pull up the covers.

"You have a pretty weird way of taking care of people," she mumbles, forking out more spaghetti. "This stuff is terrible, y'know."

I pull on some pajama bottoms, and sit on the bed next to her, leaning my head against the headboard. Breathe in. Why doesn't this feel awful? Why am I not uncomfortable? I cross my legs.

"Namine, do you still draw?"

"Yeah, I have some sketchbooks lying around."

"May I see them?"

"No."

I look at her, trying to appear disappointed. Her face is all scrunched up in this pouty thing.

"They're mine."

Aw. How adorable. Like, really.

"Okay." I laugh. She's got a little more color. I lie down on my back next to her. "Hey, Namine, how far back can you remember?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like, some people can't remember anything from before they were six. Some people can remember their own infancy."

"Um," she mumbles, "I remember you almost kicking me to death when I was three. I had lots of bruises on my ribcage. But I don't think that's my first memory…"

"I remember eating a rock."

"I remember eating an entire snail."

"We used to dare each other to do crazy stuff like that." I say, smiling. "Like, provoking horses at petting zoos."

She breathes through her nose. Stares at the ceiling, wistfully. What are you thinking about? Are you thinking that it's strange that we can be nostalgic like this, after doing things like… _that_?

Sex isn't real. Perhaps that's what it is. Complete psychological blockage, or denial. Or maybe we just don't care. We bring up stupid little things about childhood – stuff that doesn't really matter anymore. It really doesn't, we've screwed it all up in about one week. All those childhood memories just kind of lay there, abandoned, for this new, demented thing we've created. Maybe? I think that's how it is.

"Why can't I look at your art, Namine?"

She thinks for a moment.

"It's very hard to explain." She says.

"Go ahead and try."

"Well…" she pauses, "Here's a way to put it. If you walked up to an art professor, and said, 'Congratulations, you get to showcase porn,' he'd understand completely."

"…What?"

She blushes.

"Oh, well, maybe that's not a very good explanation." She breathes in, "It's like this… music – it's a projection of the soul. When you make music, or sing, or whatever, It's soul. Music, like records and CDs… that's pornography of the soul. Listening to music is masturbation of the soul."

I nod, raising an eyebrow.

"Art – usually – is a projection of being. And emotion. You draw what you feel, what you want to duplicate. You project a reflection of desire. So, observed art is like… pornography of the mind. Yeah. It provokes _being _and _thought_… so observing art is like masturbation of the mind and emotion." she looks away, "Do you get it?"

"Are you drawing porn?"

"No! Roxas, God. Nevermind."

So we just lay there for a while. I don't know how long. Ten minutes, maybe. Not saying anything.

It's getting darker. It's probably about five or six PM… there's gotta be snow everywhere. But I can't see it from here; my window is directly behind me.

I try to think about the last song I heard. It's been weeks since I really listened to music. How strange. I like music. I like old music, I mean, eighties. Namine likes to call me the 'Contemporary Morrissey' because I really like him. I can relate to a lot of Smith's music.

I start humming 'Panic,' which is really a very terrible song. Very prejudiced.

'Panic on the streets of London… Panic on the streets of Birmingham...'

And Namine sings, "I wonder to myself…" We both start laughing.

"Sing, 'Girlfriend in a Coma,'" she says.

"No…" I laugh, "I'm bad at singing."

"I don't think so." She says, laying her head on my chest. I sigh. "What's the farthest back _you _can remember?" I smile.

"I remember when you were born."

Moment silent. She sits up, and looks down at me.

"You… you really do?"

"Yeah."

"What do you remember?"

"Not much. They left me at home for a couple hours. It was all over pretty quickly, I remember there was a lot of stress about it. Mom and Dad came home all tired looking, and I said, 'Where is she?'"

Namine lies back down on me again.

"And so they took this little caterpillar thing out of a carrier and I couldn't believe It was human. You were so small, and squishy. And red. I was like, 'Is that thing a person?'"

…

And then it finally hits me. Like I knew it would. And it hits Namine, too. I can feel my chest getting wetter with tears.

I don't know why we keep doing this, really. I wish we could end it. It's the same repeated crap, over and over again. And then again.

And it's embarrassing, too – letting yourself get all relaxed and comfortable only to fall apart again, hours later. Namine's sobbing her way into my armpit.

"I'm getting so tired of seeing you cry it makes me ill." I say, petting her hair. "You're scared, aren't you?" I whisper.

"Y-yeah."

"You don't really have anything to be scared of."

"I'm scared of Mom and Dad coming home."

"They're never going to know."

"They… they'll figure something out."

"They'll never know what actually happened."

"We're never going to be the same, Roxas!" she cries. Oh, God, I hope she's not about to snap. I curl up next to her and hold her against me.

"People naturally grow, they'll just think of it as some awkward step in adolescence or something."

"I don't think I'd be able to do it…" she sniffs, "Put up a façade of the _family _scene… it's just too disgusting."

"What else can we do?" I whisper. She doesn't say anything. "We can't do anything about that. When we stop doing it, we stop doing it. Then we can focus on all that family shit again."

"It's terrible." She says bitterly. "I hate being your sister. All we did as children was fight, and tear each other apart. And just when things started to get okay, we started all… _this_."

That stings a little. Were we really doing well, before? Did our lives before have any more worth than they do now? Did we have any hope in life?

Well, all I know is that _now_, we don't. We'll always be stuck remembering all this - which we're doing. Even though we'll know that we were just dumb teenagers. The past usually sticks with you. I was a tired, skinny scruff when I was little. I still am. Namine was a passionate, emotional girl when she was little. She still is. The strange thing is, we've become more foolish. Why is that?

I mean, we were never especially obedient children. We would lie, occasionally. But we never did anything stupid. We never burned ants, or ate garbage or anything.

And now… what the fuck are we doing? I mean, we started some drugs relatively early on… I started smoking a couple years ago. And then of course all the sex was saved for this.

Blaming it on hormones grosses me out. Blaming it on personal choice grosses me out. It was just a very animalistic action – some sexual barrier breaks within you, at one point, and we happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, goading each other on.

"It might be considered our personal obligation to clean up our own mess." I mumble.

"I don't think I can. I don't even know if I can try. It might affect my brain."

"Yeah, either way, we can't let this end in brain damage."

"More importantly, we can't let this get cleaned up by someone else."

"You mean all of our actions?"

"Yeah. And your mattress, if that's what you mean."

Luckily, nothing penetrated the mattress cover. Namine's wearing pajamas, watching television. The sheets from the kitchen are now in the washer.

"Do you even know how to do laundry?" She calls.

"Kind of! Don't you patronize me, kid. I bet you couldn't crack an egg."

"… How are we still alive?"

"Think of Ono and Lennon. It's a hibernation sort of thing." I pause for a moment. "For peace or whatever."

She makes a disgusted noise from the living room.

"Ugh, I just pictured black-and-white nakedness."

"Yes, but it was for peace." I point out.

"I don't care what it was for – your fucking British Invasion obsession warped my mind. Every time I hear 'Norwegian Wood' I think of…"

"Johnny's - "

"Yeah."

"Poor thing." I mock sympathy, walking into the living room.

"Yeah, well, he was famous, and he knew people would be looking at it."

"His Norwegian - "

"Yeah, that."

" – wood. Haha."

"Hahaha."

… She laughs at bad Beatle's jokes. That's good for me, at least.

She sighs.

"I just hope he got most of what he wanted."

"Who, Lennon? He was filthy rich, I'm sure he was just fine."

"I was so sad when he died."

"You… you weren't born yet."

"Yeah, well, still."

"But his early death kind of made him more legendary, don'tcha think?" I ask, kneeling in front of the couch, thankful for something finally to talk avidly about.

"I dunno. He… seemed like kind of a jerk."

"Huh?" The Walrus? A jerk? Is she insane?

"I don't know. Cynthia Powell. Yeah."

"What about her?"

"He was mean to her."

And then I remember all that about Paul, and 'Hey Jude.' What that was all about.

"You mean their son?" I ask quietly.

"Yeah. You just don't do that sort of thing, it doesn't seem right." She sighed.

… But I guess I'll never know. I'm not going to argue with good songwriting. I'll let Namine's mind do whatever it pleases. If she prefers to hate on Lennon, let her do it, I suppose. I can't make her stop whatever she sets her mind to.

"Hey, let's try smoking tea in a pipe."


	9. Chapter 9 Namine's POV

**A/N: **It'd be really great if I could get all this finished before I turn 15, it'd be awesome, instead of having to transcend age groups while writing this. I'm really close, but I doubt it's gonna happen since my birthday is in like, a week or something.

Uh, anyways: **Namine's POV.**

x

At least everyone's life, under any circumstances is very unhappy or embarrassing for any one reason. The thing is, you can't control how many bad things happen to you, most of the time. It's generally just based on the way you deal with it, in the end. Tons of people just fuck up their lives because they feel so utterly sorry for themselves.

_"Namine, you're so pretty, why do you seem so sad?"_

_ "Namine, you're such a good artist, and you're so intelligent. Why don't you try harder in school?"_

_ "I never thought you'd be the type of girl who'd feel that way."_

_ "It hurts to see you feeling like you're worthless – I often wish I was you. Lots of people do."_

_ "Don't you get it?"_

I hear this kind of thing a lot. Mostly from teachers, or other girls at school. I think I inadvertently put up some kind of illusionary front; people think that I'm some quiet, murky person. And sometimes I suppose I am.

I'm a really, delicate, feminine person when I'm not thinking about it. I'm artistic, and a little musical, and attractive enough. In the beginning, boys see me as some cute thing – something relatively attainable: not exactly _beautiful_, and especially not _sexy_. And that usually ends pretty soon, because I don't really like people. At all.

Perhaps it's my eccentricity. My family, especially Roxas, don't know how ridiculous I get sometimes. With Kairi… of course.

If we're not doing stupid things while wearing sunglasses, we're mainly just knocking stuff over in supermarkets and doing little skits amongst ourselves in British accents. And so, even if they are attracted to me, some boys may think I'm a lunatic.

But most of them probably think I'm a quiet, serious, and slightly tired girl. Which is basically what I am.

Kairi is my best friend. She's an idiot though. Very, very, stupid. But I grew up with her, along with Sora, who isn't exactly an idiot. And then of course, my brother.

…

Roxas. Milk and honey Roxas. Sick, knobby-kneed Roxas.

It's so difficult to think about, now. Sitting in this house, feeling myself dying. I've always trusted him, even now. It's just too much pain.

And I hate it. I hate it with an unruly passion, feeling myself wilting away like this, so pathetic and weak – less so than him. He's actually, _physically _withering away, always chucking up his insides. It's terrible. It's so awful to watch.

I never really got used to it, either, even though it's been happening since we were young, like grade-school young.

Sitting as a nine-year-old on his bed next to him as an eleven-year-old, saying,

_"Roxas? Let's play a video game."_

_ "No. Go away."_

_ "But why?"_

_ "I don't feel good."_

_ "You weren't feeling good yesterday."_

_ "I'm sick."_

_ "You were sick yesterday."_

_ "Quick, move-"_

And he'd run to the bathroom, and I'd have to witness it again. And again. And again. He was such a little kid – not short, but so thin. He ate a lot, but he threw it all up.

And he'd cough, on the verge of tears, flushing the toilet.

_"Please don't watch that, when it happens."_ He'd say hoarsely, washing his hands.

_"Why? Why does this happen?"_

_ "I don't know."_

_ "What the heck are you eating?"_

_ "Nothing out of the ordinary, Namine. I don't need you worrying about me, ok? I'm in middle school now."_

_ "So? It seems like you're gonna die."_

_ "Just let it go, it's just some virus."_

But it definitely wasn't, and I think he knew that too, at the time.

_"Sora told me that your brother hasn't been to school in almost a week."_ Kairi said, while we glued together something in a fourth grade classroom.

_"He's sick."_

_ "Riiiight."_

_ "No, really, he's very sick."_

_ "With what? The flu?" _she asked, sticking her finger in a bottle of paste, eating it.

_"Don't do that, Kairi, you retard. And no. He's got some stomach thing."_

_ "Tapeworm?"_

_ "No. Jeez."_

… But still, my world has become empty. In the course of a week: dismal. Nothing.

_"I'm not going to tell you that I want to make love to you."_

He said that to me. Just simple proof that he was uncomfortable with everything. I was wanted… I'm used to that feeling. But here, it's disgusting. But do I regret it?

Probably. I probably really regret this. I let him go through so much pain and guilt, but I'm guilty too, just as much as him.

_"You can't help it that you're so…"_

So what? So provocative? Did I lure you into this hell? Was I being a disgusting piece of flesh?

I care about you so much, Roxas. I don't want to hurt you. But I don't want to hurt myself, either. I've already been hurt so much by this. It's torn me absolutely apart. But that's not what matters, really. What matters is how we end it.

How… how do we end it?

He's always going on and on about how there is no meaning to anything. He's very, very, wise and influential, but he's scary. It's the nihilism, I can't stand it.

Most of what he says, no matter what his age is, is generally the same.

At age eighteen:

_"Listen, Namine. School. Just skip it sometimes, y'know? I mean, what the hell are you going to be, anyway?"_

Sixteen:

_"You know I can't beat any of these punks up for you, Namine, so don't go doing stupid stuff now that you're in high school, yeah? I know that you're a young woman now, and you're getting all that hormonal shit, but…"_

Fourteen:

_"Homework help? Why do you even bother? Get it done at school. It's easy anyway, come on! I'm too busy in high school. Do you know how long-ass of a time I have left to spend there? I've already got senioritis."_

Twelve:

_"No, I will NOT help you dig a fucking hole. You're supposed to wait a while until the damn plant dries up and then set it on fire. I mean, why the hell do the teachers give you baby trees, anyway? They're just gonna die, and you kids are gonna get all depressed – wait, don't tell mom I was cussing!"_

Eight:

_"Listen kid, you think first grade is hard? Do you even KNOW what I'm doing right now? Cursive. Cursive is really hard, Namine. THAT'S HARD. Ok? We play kickball. Can you even do a multiplication problem? Do you even KNOW what a sedimentary rock is? I don't think so."_

Six:

_"You prolly don't know this, Nami, but there's this thing out there called Mars. And people aren't allowed to walk on it, or somethin'. There's not enough air. And also, MARTIANS! RAWR!"_

… The intelligent, condescending older brother. But he still did give me a lot of advice. I mean, that's probably what impacted my poor relationships with other guys. He'd say things like,

_"All guys are mainly idiots, but you know that."_

_ "Even if you really want to, don't have sex. Kissing boys gets you pregnant, y'know."_

_ "Are you wearing a bra yet? Don't let the boys in your grade know."_

_ "You're a girl, right? You don't smell like a girl, at least not the 7__th__ grade girls that I'm around. But that's good, because boys get all over that."_

_ "Mom has boobs. I think that's why dad married her. Don't worry, you'll get some one day. Or not. Haha!"_

_ "Girls have cooties, but y'know what? Boys have fungus growing underneath their skin. Don't get near it, Namine!"_

_ "Guess what word I learned today? VAGINA! I don't know what it means, but you have one, apparently."_

But then, I probably said a lot of stupid stuff all my life, too. Not just now. The thing is, growing up is very painful. I wonder if Roxas feels that way, too. It's just awful. I don't know if it's the nostalgia, or the hormones, or all the shit we have to go through. But puberty, growing up – it's all terrible. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

Even when he got sick, Roxas was this intimidating, looming person. The genius older brother that knew the answer to most things. I wonder if he ever gets insecure with his thoughts? I doubt he does. He probably never has the inner conflict like I do. He probably never argues with God. He almost always seems so steady, even when he's awkwardly blushing or if he'd kissed me.

Kissed me… Christ. What's going on between me and Roxas right now is something I'd never be able to explain to anyone, ever. Just thinking about it makes my stomach unfurl into a mess of pain.

"We could forget everything spiritually," he says, bringing the wooden pipe to his mouth, the thing full of tea-packet contents. It's lit, and he breathes it in, and coughs.

"How?" I never really know his reasons for doing _anything_, he just does it. He coughs some more.

"Well, y'know – like brainwashing ourselves. Mind game."

"That sounds weird. It'll never work."

"Do you trust me or not? Don't answer that."

I'll always trust you, Roxas, no matter what. That's just the way it is.

"Pass me that," I say, pointing to the pipe.

"It's a one-way ticket to a sore throat," he says, handing it to me.

"Whatever. I honestly don't care at all." I inhale, and my lungs burn. I don't smoke, so this really does hurt. "Ow." And I start coughing.

"I told you, but you never listen." He says, taking it from me.

Why are we smoking tea? I mean, how did he even come up with that? One of his stupid bands probably thought it was a good idea. He inhales again.

"Are we getting high?" I ask, getting really _low._ Seriously.

"No." He blows out smoke.

"Where did you get a pipe, even?"

"I stole it."

"Really?"

"From a cigar emporium."

"Cool."

Roxas _is _cool. He doesn't know it, but most of the girls in my grade love him. Not Kairi, she's witnessed his really shy, nerdy kid stages, but he's past that, now. I hear crap from other kids though. About how we _look so much alike, _which I really hate to hear. Like, being blonde and all that. I don't understand why we look so bright and sunny; it totally doesn't compliment our personalities.

_"Namine, your brother? I usually don't talk to you, but… he's a dreamboat."_

_ "You think so? You and everyone else." _I'd say, bitterly.

_"Think you could hook me up with him?"_

_ "Fuck off, seriously."_

_ "Yeah, her brother's a dork, anyways." _Kairi would say, who's into jockey-type boys.

_"What? No way. He's a god. He's so handsome." _They'd say.

And I mean, sometimes I think Roxas is a god. I'd walk by him at school, and he didn't really hang out with anyone except a few guys who were just as smart and bored as he was, and maybe Riku. The athletic kids didn't really like him, because he was so obviously NOT athletic, but everyone else did. Some guys just seriously _love _Roxas. They respect him, 'cause he just knows so much. He doesn't seem to get it… how much he knows.

_"Namine, I don't care if you talk shit about Van Gough, but don't say anything about Rembrandt, seriously. He was a fucking genius."_

_ "What? Do you even like art?"_

_ "Yes! So don't diss Rembrandt."_

…

I'm nothing but scared. I'm so, so, so scared. Roxas might not be, but I am. I'm so frightened of what's gonna happen. I'm not as smart as Roxas… and I'm not a little kid like he often thinks I am, but I'm just too damn scared.

How am I gonna deal with this? School. _Parents._

"Just pretend nothing happened for as long as possible, Namine." He says, inhaling again.

I can't do that. I just can't. I'll never be able to – it's impossible. How much have we done, already? It's terrible. We get so caught up with it… _I _get so caught up with it, and I just lose it.

_"Goddamnit, Namine! We just lost it. We knew we couldn't…" _I remember he was freaking out after it happened the first time, I hadn't seen him cry for so long, since we were little. _"We can't forget that we're-"_

Brother and sister. No less than that, and… it's sick. It's too sick.

And I just cry, again. And cough.

"Namine…" he says, putting on his older-brother voice, "Really. Crying isn't going to do anything good."

"I can't stop." I sniff. My nose keeps running.

"Yes you can." He says, "Will you please just relax? You're getting anxious."

"I can't." I'm not like you, Roxas. I can't ease my own mind like you.

"If you can't relax, we'll never be able to get over this."

I won't be able to. I know. I never will. I can't stand the thought of it, not being here. In this house. Alone.

"Namine, you have to relax. We can't let this turn to mud. You pour water on a bad situation and it might turn to mud."

"I don't care."

"You've got a nosebleed, Namine, how are you not completely drained?" He asks, exasperated, and wipes the blood off my face, and I sneeze, and it gets all over my hands. And Roxas gets this weird look, like he's remembering something bad.

"Roxas…" I mumble, washing my hands and face in the kitchen, "How does this end?"

"This? We…" he pauses, "We go to school, we forget everything. We talk about it alone, but _always _alone, and never at school. Then, I'll go to college and it'll be over."

"Is that it?"

"I think so."

"I can't do that."

"Yeah… why?"

"Because I still love you."

He looks very frustrated when I turn around from the sink to face him.

"And I still love you," he says, "But that's irrelevant. And wrong. You know it's wrong, right?"

"Yes, Roxas."

"It's…" he looks away, "It's so wrong. It's just really wrong."

"I know, Roxas." I sigh.

He looks like he wants to say something else. But it's not coming out, so I decide to grab some clothes and head out. I really need to leave.

"Where are you going?" He calls from the living room as I slip on my boots.

"I dunno."

"Can I go?"

"No."

"Okay. See-ya."

I'm walking around in really, really high snow. It's almost past my hips, which is probably really dangerous to be in, but its fun. It takes about an hour and a half to trudge to Kairi's place, but it was worth it, 'cause she keeps it so warm in there, with all her incense and lava lamps and stuff.

"Where are your parents?" I ask, throwing off my clothes until I'm sitting in a beanbag chair in my underwear.

"Hell if I know. Where are yours?"

"I dunno. Somewhere eating bears, I guess."

"Huh?"

"Never mind."

I stretch out tiredly, my lungs and throat really hurting. Damn that fucking pipe juju.

"What about Roxas?"  
"Hm?

"Where is he?"

"At home." Well, probably not. Axel's probably picked him up by now.

"Oh… you two have been alone together a lot. I bet that sucks."

"Yeah. It really does. Terribly."

"What have you been doing?"

"Board games."

"Huh? That's it? You didn't watch that thing on-"

"Board games."

"Uh, ok."

So we lay there, listening to some Fleetwood Mac records. When Buckingham starts playing 'Insane,' Kairi starts to lose it, mentally. She does that fast.

"Namine, do you ever wish you were African American?"

"I… never really thought about it. Why?"

"Sometimes I do."

I decide not to pursue that topic any further. But there's always another stupid thing for her to bring up.

"What do you like to read, Namine?"

"Irving."

"Who?"

"John Irving. He wrote some good stuff. Good, Amurrrcan stuff."

"Like what?"

"I haven't read much. _Garp _is good. And something else."

"Haha. Garp."

And it goes on like this for a while. At least an hour.

"Favorite movie?"

"Bottle Rocket."

"Color?"

"I dunno, lavender?"

"Beatle?"

"… George."

"You're still a virgin, right?"

Uh, wait.

"What?"

"Yeah, that's a dumb question." She laughs.

"Wait, what did you ask?"

"You're still a virgin?"

Moment silent.

"What?"

"I _said_, 'Are you still a virgin?'" She slurs, as if I'm burdening her, "But that's a dumb question to ask you."

"… Yeah. It is."

"I know."

"Silly Kairi."

"Uh-huh…"

I can't really say anything. If I do, I'm afraid it'll be something stupid.

"Namine, you _are_ still a virgin… right?" she smiles awkwardly.

"…Yes."

"Ok," she sighs, "You sure?"

"Uh-huh."

And I just burst into tears. I should've said something, not waited.

"Oh my God… Namine, it's okay, I'm still a virgin too…" She puts a hand on my back. "It's nothing to be ashamed of…"

"I know."

"Seriously, don't worry. It's not that big of a deal."

"Yeah…" I sob.

"I mean, it'll happen eventually, right? I wonder that myself. Boys are so hard to understand."

"Uh-huh." I sniff, trying to control myself. It's like, at any waking moment I'm gonna blow up. It's all this pain – this horrible pent up pain that you'd tell a teacher or a parent about when you're five, but you just can't. It's like that. And it's unbearable.

"Kairi, I'm just not happy."

"I understand."

Well you don't, but you never do anyway. So it's okay.

"Want me to drive you home?"

"Sure."

Kairi walks me into the house, her moms little mini-cooper in our driveway. Roxas is asleep on the couch.

"You gonna be okay?" she asks, putting a hand on my shoulder.

"Yes." I mumble.

"Are you sure?" She seems so stupidly serious.

"I'm sure."

"There's nothing wrong with being a virgin, Namine."

"I know…" I say quietly, looking away. Will you get out of my house already?

"Tell Roxas I say, 'Harro.'" And she leaves.

I wait until the car's gone before I approach Roxas, who is now awake.

"What was that?" he asks.

"I got upset at her house."

He looks angry.

"Don't do that. Really. _Don't_."

"I know, I just…" I sigh, "I dunno. I can't do this."

"Were you _crying?_" he asks, looking almost scared.

"Yeah, but… she totally has no idea what's going on."

"Yeah… virgin?" he asks. He looks sick. Like, really uncomfortable.

I don't know much about the girls he was with. Just a few of them… they were like him, quiet and smart. And I never saw him kiss anyone.

"You…" I begin gracelessly, "Before…"

"Yeah, I was." He says, choking on 'was.'

"You're not lying? Please for the love of God-"

"I'm not fucking lying, Namine. Never."

"Okay. Just – I don't know."

I really think I made him mad. I'm just _so damn scared_. I mean, when we did it – was he scared, too?

"Roxas, when… y'know. I flipped."

"I know."

"I was so terrified."

He seriously scowls at me.

"You were, huh?" he says sarcastically, "You said you trusted me."

"I did! I do, I mean."

He turns very pale.

"How do you think I felt, really?" he asks, "When you made that clear. That you trusted me."

I don't know. I have no idea what you're thinking.

"I was scared." Yeah? He leans back. "I sometimes wonder if you even know what you're doing. Or what you're leaving me with."

This is such a pity.

I can feel myself breaking down.

"I don't know what to say, really, I'm just sorry." I feel myself shaking, "Especially that I can't run away from it."

He looks at me just… sadly. This is sad.

"I don't want to be afraid around _you_." He says, "I know you need me. That's what the trouble is."

"Sorry." I mumble.

"I wish I could take this away for you."

"No, I love you." I say.

"And I love you. That's what makes this so awful."

And then what? This isn't anything. I wish I could say that I don't _feel _anything, because I do. I feel too much. Pain, heartache, discomfort, sorrow, anxiety.

Roxas, how are you feeling? Do you feel as much as I do? Are you alone? I don't want you to be alone.

"Please," I shudder, and I let him hold me, "I just wish it could stop." He pets my hair, "I'm scared, and I hate this."

"I'm so sorry," he mutters, "I'm so sorry." Over and over, until he starts shuddering. "I'm so sorry, Namine."

"Roxas, really." I mumble, trying to keep him from falling apart, too.

"I'm so incredibly sorry. I'm such a terrible brother."

"You're not."

"Who… who the hell would let this happen?"

"I did, too. I'm a terrible sister."

"No. You didn't. Don't lie to me. Just agree with me, really."

"You're not a bad brother." I say, trying to get it out of his head, "You're not."

I can't stop crying. I've probably lost 5 pounds in tears. It leaves me exhausted every time.

"And yeah, of course it'll haunt us, forever." He mumbles, when I had about fallen asleep. "That's just the way it is."

"I can't fucking do it."

"_What _other choice do we _have?_"

"We don't."

I don't think.

Silence. It hurts, to think like this. In such despair.

"No." he says, reading my mind.

"I…"

"Follow the fucking sun, Namine."

"I didn't say anything."

"But I know what you're thinking. You're not desperate."

But I don't know how much more of this I can take. The whole situation is ugly. I feel sick. We're sick. It's all sick. And really, I'm losing it. I can't communicate.

"And so?" I mumble.

He wrenches me out of his lap and grasps tightly to me by my shoulders.

"I don't wanna hear a single word about it." He says, dangerously.

"I don't know what to do."

"You're not going to-" he can't say it, "… that's for sure."

"I don't know what to do." I say again, breaking down.

"I'll never let you. Don't be stupid, Namine."

"But…"

"Shut it. Just shut the fuck up." And he stands up. And goes upstairs. I hear the shower running.

What do I do, then? I'm scared. That's it, really – anxiety. What's gonna happen? Initiation. Pain, despair.

Pain. Illness. Pain. Regret.

Pain. That's all it is. That's all _this _is. Sickness. A tormenting desolation. All of it.

And what's left over is nerves – we love each other. That may have been all that mattered at one point, but now it's just sick. Not sin… or I don't know. I'd have to ask Roxas.

Pain brought upon by sin? Pain because of heartache? Pain because of sorrow? No.

I feel pain because he is my brother. The older brother I respect, but still sometimes loathe. That I love, but sometimes feel too uncomfortable around. That I _want _but that makes me cry. And I'm just so _alone_, because I don't know what you think.

Or what you feel, or how you see me. Do you see me as your little sister? A child? An equal?

Or am I just Namine? Just this girl, during winter break. Alone and trapped, with nobody else.

He's so much more logical than me – he can figure out the answers to things and his feelings so much quicker. I have no resolve, so what can I do?

I'm in despair. I'm in complete, raw despair. I'm lost.

In this dark world, I'm completely lost. Parents – they're useless. It's all useless. And there's no light.

I don't want to be a child, but I'm lost, and I have no light, whatsoever.


End file.
